Page 98 of Rewitched

“Take me home,” she whispered.

HER STOMACH LURCHED, dropping into the balls of her feet and falling through her heels. It was the sensation of tipping over the edge of a rollercoaster, free-falling at a speed so extreme that she felt her skin shrink back to wrap every nerve ending within her. Her tongue pressed against the roof of her mouth from the force, her hair flew upwards, caught in a current. And then it was done. She felt a firmness beneath her toes. The scent of Ariadne’s favourite candles was the first thing that she noticed. She opened one eye. The living room.

“What in the ever-loving fuck?”

The slight, now very apparent issue was that she had transferred herself to the very room where Ariadne was currently sitting sprawled out across the sofa. Belle had never seen her move so fast. She jolted upright with such a fervour that it looked like an electric shock.

Belle cringed. She was going to tell Ariadne everything, but this was perhaps not the gentle approach she should have taken in introducing her non-wicche friend to the phenomenon of real-life magic.

And she had to get to Queens Wood.

“I’m so sorry. Ignore me. I’m not here,” Belle chimed, heading straight into her room to pull the Selcouth cloak and hat from the pile of clothes on her armchair.

Ariadne, verging on hysteria, scrambled up from the sofa. “Did I miss something? Where did you come from? You left. I thought…What are you wearing?”

“I know, the hat is terrible,” Belle said, pulling the point into place.

“Either you’re having a breakdown or I am. We can’t both have one at the same time.”

“It’s not a breakdown. This is happening. I have handled this terribly, but now you’re in the deep end, and I’m going to need you to keep swimming just for a couple more hours while I go and fix a few things.” Belle was rambling at a speed she didn’t even know was possible as she gripped her friends’ forearms. “Please don’t entirely lose the plot until I’m home again. I know this kind of thing has sent people into madness before, but we’re strong modern women. We’ve seen weirder stuff than this. It’s just the supernatural. Some people believe in the stock market, in the internet, in aliens…I’m going to need you to believe in this. You can handle this, right?”

Ari made a noise that was somewhere between a confused huff and a scoffing honk.

“Great. I’ll be back,” Belle said hastily before casting out her finger and transferring straight to what she hoped her magic would know to be the oak circle.

32

The Final Challenge

“YOU TOOK YOUR time,” said Rune.

“It is literally three minutes past six,” said Belle, finding him waiting impatiently next to her mother.

“Exactly. I told you to be on time,” Rune said firmly, pulling down the sleeves of his jacket as she landed on the ground of Queens Wood.

“I’ve just left my non-wicche friend questioning whether she belongs in an asylum after self-transferring directly in front of her. I think you can spare me three minutes,” Belle snapped at him.

“Ariadne witnessed magic?” Bonnie gasped, clutching her necklace.

“I’m just saying,” Rune interjected, “that funnily enough I’m on quite high alert when it comes to your safety. I was starting to think that you might have run into some trouble.”

Belle took a moment. “Fine,” she said reluctantly. “That is actually quite thoughtful.”

“Successful self-transference, though,” he pointed out, looking impressed.

“Belle, what about Ariadne?”

“It’s fine, Mum. Just the cherry on top of the cauldron.” Belle forced herself to relax. “It’s going to be fine. Hi, by the way.” She gave her mum a hug. “We have so much that we need to talk about.”

“No time for that now. Rune has filled me in, I know the dot-to-dots. Rune, would you like to do the honours with Mr. Day, or shall I? He was a little anxious to make the journey himself.”

“I’ll fetch him,” Rune replied, disappearing for what must only have been a handful of seconds before reappearing again with Artorius hanging on to his forearm, looking impossibly small and frail next to Rune’s towering height. They touched down onto the dry earthy floor of the bare circle in the woods with a whirlwind of sparks, kicking up brown dust as they materialised.

“My, that hasn’t gotten any more pleasant over the years, has it? You’d think in this day and age we might have refined the process slightly,” Artorius said, looking a little green around the gills. He gripped his thighs for a moment, head down to steady himself, then glanced up. “And where might we be, exactly?”

“This is a perpetual gate to and from Hecate House, no matter where it incarnates. Leaving the quad via the stone statues always brings you out to the oak circle here. Nonetheless, I spent most of today disabling a handful of enchantments around the place that would normally alert Hecate House to our arrival. The breaks should hold long enough for us to slip in unnoticed.”

Belle, for the first time, took proper note of their surroundings. With dusk setting in and the huge towering canopies of the oaks, the air was dark, almost purple in hue, with an undulating supernatural feeling. She immediately found her senses heightened like an animal, awareness sharpened to a weaponised point. Magic was in the air. The breeze was rushing through the nut brown leaves above, and the bare, spindly branches sounded like frantic whispers from every which way.