He tells me the history of the house as we go. It was built in the 1940s, and by his reckoning is on the site of the old Redhaven homestead that was destroyed in the 1860s. It took years of research to figure out where it was.
‘And you turning up here confirms I was right,’ he says, with a scholar’s satisfaction.
‘You mean a Fenn connection to this place?’ I ask, and explain to Lachlan how I got here, how I’d thought I was following him, but his absence made me think I must have been following something else entirely.
‘Exactly!’ He’s thrilled that I’ve made the connection, my clever dad delighted to have a clever daughter. ‘Your magic would have followed your family bloodline. It was your great-great-grand-whatever Elora who created Redhaven around the early 1850s – I could never find an exact date. My best guess is that she was worried about political volatility, what with the push for the West, into Texas and Oregon, and the first rumblings of tension between North and South. She must have worried that witches would be conscripted, or weaponised in any coming conflict. That was the same decade the Seneca Falls Convention saw the beginning of the women’s rights movement. It was a good time to be angry and defiant, Harper, though it was still a bad time to be awitch.’ He laughs, without his usual humour. ‘It’s always a bad time to be a witch.’
‘So Elora really was Redhaven’s first Adept,’ I say, wonderingly. Her name is in the front of Starcross, written in a lean, sloping hand. A bold, two-stroke curling E. Alongside, scratchier, as if the pen was running out of ink and she was in too much of a hurry to re-dip it, the date of her Determination: 1804.
‘Its first and its last. My pet theory, for which I’ve really no evidence, is that the body which became the Moot – at this point, a network of branches of the charmingly-named Association of Gifted People – betrayed Redhaven to the authorities. It wanted to clear its own path to power and had a different vision for witchcraft. Redhaven was always separatist, which could easily be twisted into “supremacist”, whereas the Association was all about collaboration. My hunch is that despite its swaggering name, the Association was run by weak magicals who knew they’d always have to ride the tail-coats of mundane authority. I think the same about the Moot today, which is why I decided years ago that Redhaven needed to return.’
‘And you’re its new Adept.’
‘Yes,’ Lachlan says. ‘I am. Only this time, we won’t be stopped.’
His fists are tight upon his knees. There’s no joking in his voice now.
‘Lachlan?’ It’s Eugene, the old ward witch. ‘Someone out there is looking for us.’
‘And before you sayno shit,’ Yara adds, because of course she’s there too, ‘they appear to have a pass-key. Okay, I get thatshedidn’t need one, but can you tell me when you’re handing them out like candy on Halloween? It’s helpful for me to keep a record.’
‘I haven’t handed any out. Or even given one, with great caution, to a trusted ally.’
My dad jumps to his feet, frowning, and the four of us make our way through the orchard to the wards. Tavi’s there waiting. Approaching from behind, I see the gun holstered at her back. I guess it was there even as she welcomed me.
‘Their magic’s weak,’ Eugene reports. ‘They won’t make it through the wards. But they must have something of yours that got them even this close.’
‘I don’t havethings,’ my father says, ‘for exactly this reason.’ And I remember the tiny knapsack in the hallway of the Green Point cottage where he stayed. How the place never showed any trace of him living there.
‘Any other secret children we should know about?’ Yara says, and I revise my revision of her likeability.
‘Let’s run it backwards,’ my father tells Eugene, and the two men stand facing each other performing hand-gestures akin to cat’s cradle. The two women stand behind, Tavi with a hand on my father’s shoulder and Yara touching Eugene. They’resharing magic, I realise, with a sudden fierce happiness. Doing it as easily and naturally as you’d pass someone a spanner while they mend a car, or pick up a towel for drying as they wash dishes. This is how magic is supposed to be done.
This is how witches are meant to live.
Then I see it, shimmering in the darkness, a faint gleam like a hairline fracture in the world. About waist height, it crosses the track where that forestry-style barrier lies. I’d bet it loops around the entirety of Redhaven. It’s only when I blink that my eyes catch a thread of light fine as cotton trailing from that perimeter and unspooling into the darkness. Rather more straightforward than my weird shit with shadows and animals.
‘You’ll have to teach me how that works, Dad,’ I say. ‘Would have saved the local wildlife a lot of inconvenience.’
‘Any time.’ He’s smiling at me, but his brow is still furrowed. ‘Our would-be visitor is still a way off, but Eugene’s right, there’s no strength to their Gift. They’re not a threat, so once it’s light, come with me to find out who’s looking for me, and I’ll show you how our wards work.’
28
SARAH
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, blinking like a baby bird pushed out of the nest and asking ever so politely to be put back in. ‘I didn’t know who else to come to. The people I’d normally ask for help if Maggie was in trouble are, uh, the people that have done this to her.’
‘And what do you imagine I can do?’ I ask.
Chester Greenstreet wrings his hands. ‘Something?’ he says eventually, in the strangulated way I’ve learned means my petitioner really wants to say, ‘Magic?’
‘I can’t do anything to override Theodorou’s free will,’ I say, with a bluntness born of weary habit. No, the only person I ever broke that rule for was Julia, and look how it shattered our friendship. ‘But I’ll go talk to him.’
I’m uneasy all the way as I drive to Beulah County police station. It doesn’t help that I pass Bittershore Nature Preserve. It’s still not reopened, and each road sign has a hi-vis yellow one affixed beneath: ‘TEMPORARILY CLOSED’. Detective Knight and I caught a murderer when Theodorou couldn’t – and this is how she gets repaid? I remember the night of unexpected camaraderie Maggie and I spent in the homely little restaurant, after she asked me to evaluate the cabin on Bittershore beach. The spilled wine and shared confidences. How she drew a line betweenwhat the law calls justiceandwhat Harper and I had experienced. Maybe her colleagues have decided such distinctions don’t sit well on a cop.
But still, I’m surprised it’s Theodorou who’s holding her. Surely he can’t really think she’d help Luka escape?
‘She was the one who took Luka down,’ I remind him, once I’m standing in Theodorou’s bearish presence. Behind his paperwork-strewn desk, the officer is looking a little haggard in his skin, like he didn’t eat enough before hibernating, and it pulls a small tide of unwilling sympathy his way. ‘At great risk to herself. If she’d misfired it might have let Luka escape – or fatally injured him.’
