Page 31

‘This dress will kill me,’ she said into the dark room, searching out the torch on the table by the fire and switching it on.

‘The minute Abel Gulliver is back in Bath, we are doing some heavy pagan shit on this.’ She touched the red belt at her waist and her knees went weak for a second, unintentionally reliving the feeling of Abel pressing her against the door, his fingers over her hardened nipples, his lips sinking into the back of her neck.

‘You’ll be first to go, you spicy little thing. ’

Temperance finally caught her breath on the walk to the beach, trying to close off the hundreds of R-rated images the magic had conjured up of her and Abel on the sofa, in a bed, in a car, hot and heavy on the bus shelter bench.

. . Instead, Temperance tuned in to the hoots of the owls in the trees, the insistent crash of waves on stones, the wind chasing through ivy.

Anything she could find that was not hot.

That would not make a granny blush. She needed it PG so that she could get her head in order and concentrate on the job in hand.

‘Don’t move your hand, OK? I want to see if I can . . . ’

Temperance shook her head like she could knock the dreams out onto the ground. This was serious. This was not the time to live in a Judy Blume fantasy. It was time to take action.

It was still pitch black, so Temperance had plenty of time to get down to the beach, start a fire and practise reciting her spell in reverse.

The dress was heavy and cumbersome as ever, but with no one around, she could use her powers to heft a lot of it.

She was finding that the more she used her kind of magnetism to draw the silk up off the floor, the more she could lift several thick layers in one go, like she was strengthening a muscle.

But Temperance was wearing her Marigolds just in case, to save herself getting nonsensical with love and lust.

With the fire gently licking away at some driftwood (she couldn’t look at it for too long or the dressing gown belt started giving her flashbacks again, specifically to Abel’s tongue on her throat), all Temperance could do was sit and wait for the day to arrive.

And for the millionth time over the last twelve years, she found herself wondering just what it was that she’d done wrong.

How badly did you have to kiss someone to convert them from your best friend to your worst enemy?

Clearly the dream version of Temperance had some killer moves, but what had she done that day in the pub garden that had turned his stomach so completely?

It must have been something really so horrendous that Abel hadn’t been able to explain it face to face, instead he’d chucked all his worldly possessions in a car with his mum and left Devon.

Temperance had a few other kisses before that day, and none of those boys had renewed their passports and left town. Mind you, they were botched, sloppy moments of panic. What she’d shared with Abel was something much more memorable.

It had felt so natural in the moment. After a day at sixth form, they were rolling cutlery in napkins, sat together on one of the picnic benches in the pub garden.

Something they’d done a million times before, though admittedly usually with Susie doing cartwheels around them.

Temperance was turning seventeen in a few days and Abel was teasing that she wouldn’t in a million years guess what he’d got her.

‘Well, last year you bought me a double ice cream cone. So this year am I getting sprinkles as well?’

Abel rolled his eyes, his grin never faltering. ‘Nope. Way off.’

‘A hot glue gun?’

He laughed. ‘No! Who else in the world would go from thinking ice cream to a glue gun but you, Temperance Molland?’

‘Exactly.’ She straightened her shoulders, pulling up her frame. ‘That’s how amazing I am.’

There was a lull as Temperance expected him to shoot back, yeah, amazingly lame . But Abel didn’t say anything, just kept smiling down at his little mound of shining cutlery as he wrapped and rolled.

A nervous twist in Temperance’s stomach made her fill the silence. ‘If you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to go through your search history.’ She snatched his phone from the table before he could get there, pressing it to her chest.

Abel’s eyes went wide. ‘Hey!’ His hands lunged for the phone, but Temperance dodged away quickly, holding it over her head.

But this tactic was no match for the extra inches Abel had rapidly grown over the last few summer months, and he stretched out his arm, wrapping his fingers around her wrist.

Something about the way he held her, gently but with power, and how she was now just inches from his face, her body stretched along his, seemed to charge the air around them.

Their hands lowered slowly, in unison. He dipped his head down, found her lips with his and just pressed them there for a moment.

Temperance was both surprised but also strangely at ease – as if a part of her knew this day was coming, as if her subconscious was giving her a slow hand-clap and saying ‘ At last! ’.

She opened her mouth, her tongue meeting Abel’s, and even though her eyes were closed her vision was filled with a glowing sky blue.

Still holding onto the phone as if for dear life, with Abel’s fingers only tightening on her wrist, Temperance felt his other hand rest on the space between her neck and her shoulder, as if keeping her rooted on the spot, in the moment.

Not that Temperance felt she could operate her own legs right now, even if she’d wanted to run away.

All she could think about was how alive her skin felt where he was touching her, how there was nothing strange at all about the fact they were kissing, the synchronised way they tipped their heads to either side, the warmth of his breath on her top lip.

It was the first time, but it felt as natural as if they’d been doing it for a decade.

Temperance had no idea how much time had passed before a raspy voice said, ‘Ahem, that’s enough of that.

’ She had looked up to see Margie, a washing-up bowl balanced on her hip and her hair tied in a gingham scarf.

Temperance moved half a step away from Abel in that moment, her fingers reluctantly breaking contact with the golden skin on his forearms. The smile on her face was concreted on, no matter how much she tried to play it cool.

Abel was blushing up to his ears, but likewise he had the grin of someone not at all sorry.

Temperance walked home with a skip in her step, not knowing that that kiss was not just their first but also their last.

Two days later, he was gone.

Trainers kicked off by a rock, Temperance rooted her feet in the chilly, damp sand. Double-checking over her shoulder that she was truly alone, she twirled her fingers, setting the hem of the wedding dress into a gentle sway, the friction keeping Temperance’s legs warm in the cool night air.

It wasn’t time to dwell on the past – where had that ever got her? Frustrated, alone and now with the village in a whole lot of magical trouble.

The memories she was preserving in the time capsule of her heart needed to be set free, left to weather away to dust, to return back to the pure energy of emotion that linked the universe.

Ironic, really, that she was so talented at washing away the leftover memories of others with her magic, when here she was, still clinging to the echoes of things that happened twelve years ago. Not letting go.

That would all tonight.

She held her hands together at her heart and took deep, steadying breaths, right down into her core. The crash of the waves seemed to get louder, the cool air nipped more forcefully against her skin.

It’s true love I’m after , Temperance spoke inside her head, hoping to make the message clear and simple to her soul and to the magical forces all around her, not raking over a teenage tryst. Abel wasn’t the one I needed here, OK?

Let’s sort this out and set him free. Get out from under this doom cloud.

Then everything can be the way it should be.

Set him free. Set me free.

Streaks of inky blue nudged between the black sky and the grey sea.

The sun was waking up. Temperance turned her palms out and up to the sky.

In a low voice, she stated, ‘ Abel Gulliver is not The One. Though I have spent long, lonely nights wishing for love, even calling on nature’s wonder, I will set him free.

For my will is as strong as yours, and my magic as great.

Love can have all power over someone else, honestly. I swear.’

Temperance kept repeating her words, closing her eyes as the dawn emerged.

She pictured Abel climbing back in his van, starting the engine and driving out of East Prawle without a backwards glance.

She imagined herself happily working away in the shop, oblivious as he left her life silently for the second time, and how freeing that would be.

I will set him free. I will set him free .

She searched her body for any strange sensations, any magical twinges or tickles.

Her feet were warming up, but maybe that was because the first rays of dawn were hitting the sand.

Then again, maybe taking magic away felt different to reading it or casting it.

Maybe it felt nothingy because you were leaving a void behind?

The clothes that she washed at the store often felt empty, neutral, once they’d had their old emotions teased out from them.

Maybe this is how she should feel after releasing some toxic magic.

Like a blank canvas. Ready to start again and paint a new picture.

Abel Gulliver is not The One. He’s not and he never wanted to be.

It was done. It was over.