LITMIR.BIZ

      Sometimes, the dreams were different.

      They all started off OK, with her and Jack kissing. Kissing so intensely it made her dizzy. But the good bit never lasted long.

      Mostly, the dreams ended with Jack killing her in various inventively gruesome ways. On the worst nights – the nights she woke up gasping for breath, heart pounding, bed-sheets twisted and damp with sweat – he drowned her, holding her down as her lungs filled with water.

      Those nights were bad.

      But just occasionally, the dreams ended with her killing Jack. Like tonight. She was sitting astride him, her knees either side of his hips, her hair curtaining his face as they kissed. But behind her back she held a sword. With a curious sense of serenity, she pulled away from Jack, brought the sword round and thrust the blade underneath his rib cage. Jack’s eyes widened as the blood began to flow.

      Nights like this were pretty bad too.

      There was a strange, high-pitched ringing sound, and Merry wondered whether Jack was screaming. But the light had gone out of his eyes: he was already dead. Maybe she was screaming?

      The sound kept getting louder, more insistent. Merry pushed herself away from Jack, got her legs tangled in something –

      – and fell off the bed.

      ‘Ow!’ She rubbed her eyes and kicked the duvet away from her feet. The sound was alarm clocks: three of them, all ringing at once. It had been six days since Leo had dragged her out of the water. Six days that had included two visits to the lake (each time ignoring the continued insistence of the manuscript that she should ‘follow him’); a trip to the local swimming pool (an unsuccessful attempt at aversion therapy); more nightmares than she cared to remember. Multiple alarm clocks were now the only way she could get herself out of bed.

      Merry picked up a nearby shoe and hurled it at one of the clocks, but the damn thing just kept on ringing. It was clearly going to be one of those days.

      She started getting ready for school, trying to figure out exactly what story she could spin her athletics teacher about why she’d missed javelin practice again. Ruby was going to be angry with her too: it was Ruby’s birthday, and instead of going out for coffee and cake at lunchtime, Merry was going to be in the library trying to do a week’s history homework in forty-five minutes. She was about to text Ruby to suggest coffee after school when she remembered the worst thing about today. Gran had finally forced her to commit to a meeting with the coven. As soon as school finished, provided the manuscript didn’t summon her to the lake, Merry had to go and be tested.

      Merry left it to the last minute, but Jack wasn’t obliging enough to come out of the lake and give her an excuse. The meeting took place in Mrs Knox’s house: the full coven was too big to fit into Gran’s sitting room. When Merry arrived, Mrs Knox lead her through to a cavernous room at the back of the house.

      ‘Used to be a ballroom, back in my grandfather’s day. No call for such things now, but it serves our purposes.’ She glanced at Merry over her shoulder and smiled. ‘No need to be nervous. We’re not going to eat you.’

      It took a few minutes for Merry’s eyes to adjust to the dimness: the curtains were closed and the only light came from a variety of candlesticks positioned round the edges of the room. There seemed to be about twenty women waiting for her; she hadn’t been expecting so many.

      Gran emerged from the throng. ‘Hello, darling. You look tired.’ She hugged Merry tightly. ‘Well, you can relax now. We won’t be doing anything too demanding.’

      Merry nodded, but she wondered what Gran’s definition of demanding included.

      Gran quickly ran through the names of the coven members Merry hadn’t met before – Merry was glad to see Flo there, despite the unfortunate episode with the manuscript – and then pointed Merry to a chair on its own, facing the semicircle of fully trained witches.

      ‘So, let’s get down to it. I know you’ve been having problems with the spells I asked you to try. But what magic can you do?’

      Merry looked around the ring of expectant faces. ‘Er …’

      ‘It’s alright, Merry, I know you must have experimented. No one will blame you in the circumstances.’

      ‘Quite a good thing, actually.’ Mrs Knox’s loud interruption – she didn’t seem to know about indoor voices – made Merry jump. ‘Magic with no outlet is liable to go wild. That’s where stories of poltergeists come from. Usually just some poor, untrained girl who doesn’t know her own power, and then—’

      ‘Yes, thank you, Sophia.’ Gran, in contrast to Mrs Knox, spoke quietly, but her voice commanded instant attention from the other witches. ‘Merry, it’s been over four years since we tested you. Tell us what’s been happening, magically speaking.’

      Merry’s insides squirmed.

      ‘Well, I did try some stuff out on my own. I … I borrowed a book from your house and, you know, just had a go.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘Um, some of the spells seemed to work.’ Merry thought back to the first couple of years of her ‘experimenting’. She was definitely going to have to be selective. ‘I learnt a spell to get rid of spots. A memory charm, to help me study for tests. Um, and a deflection spell, which seemed to stop teachers asking me questions in class …’ A couple of the witches were frowning and peering at her searchingly. She could feel her face flushing and looked away. ‘A few other small things.’

      ‘OK.’ Gran, at least, didn’t seem to be judging her. ‘Have you progressed at all since then?’

      ‘Well … no. I stopped, last summer.’ Gran’s eyebrow lifted, so Merry ploughed on. ‘I got scared that something would go wrong, with nobody to correct me.’

      ‘That’s the whole reason?’

      Merry nodded, grateful for the dim lighting.

      ‘And how has your magic behaved?’

      ‘Nothing happened for a while. I thought—’

       Hoped? Or feared?

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