Page 10 of Uncharmed

Glory reached out a motherly palm, gentle against Annie’s cheek, and her expression softened fondly. ‘You’re a good girl, Annie.’

Annie left after a second cocktail. Tiredness was beginning to seep into her shoulders, the spell fading in potency. It was far too late to wait for a taxi in the midst of Richmond Park. Fortunately, magic could step in to carry the load and her home’s pink front door was behind her in a moment. She tried to remind herself that it wasn’t so bad to be alone when the silence wrapped itself around her in a thick scarf. She’d be wishing for it once the spell began again.

Once Karma had been suitably fussed, fed and escorted to the window to begin her viewing of the foxes who liked to stalk the pavement, Annie could begin her own nighttime ritual.

She closed the bathroom door to ensure that the cat wouldn’t follow behind her. The one and only time that Karma had inadvertently seen the spell in motion, she’d started to hiss as soon as the steam rose in its ghostly tendrils, unsure of what was unfolding, but her feline instincts certain that it wasn’t good news. Before Annie could comfort or reassure her, Karma had retreated under the bed with her back arched, her already enormous white tail puffed out to three times its volume. Once the spell was over and Annie had seen the final dregs drain safely away, it had taken an entire spoonful of custard to coax Karma out from under the bed and win back her love. She rarely set paw in the bathroom any more.

Every witch needed her altar – a purposeful place for her craft – and this was hers, where no one else was allowed. An uncharacteristic décor choice for Annie, decidedly non-pink nor fluffy, the bathroom was a darker space. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with wooden apothecary cabinets, the glass doors stained in moody colours that depicted a tangle of spiked bracken and winter flowers, poppies and hellebores. Each cupboard door was firmly locked against visitors, doubled down with both security magic and a physical key that could only be summoned from her mind – a nifty incantation that she’d recreated from the coven’s own security measures. An antique chandelier of glassy droplets hung from the ceiling above the bathtub. Annie cast her magic towards it to grant each candle branch a tiny flame. She took a moment to breathe, leaning against the door, reassuring herself that she didn’t need to rush. Things would soon be back under control.

She padded over to the sink, lighting the rest of the candles around the room, and cast Venustas Tergeo, an incantation she’d perfected as a teenager to remove her make-up instantaneously. Her self-care ritual was the most sacred part of her day, glossing and plumping herself to a mirror glaze that would rival the sugar donuts at Celeste. Annie took a moment to examine her face as closely as she could in the mirror, pulling the skin tighter at the sides, lifting her brow a fraction higher to where it used to be. It was one of the stranger parts of getting older; the moments of realization that her face really was starting to change, teenage features fading while faint pencil lines began to sketch themselves around her eyes and forehead. That was, at least, when the spell began to wear off. She would rarely go long enough between topping it up to allow these things to fully take effect.

Eager to begin, to feel right again, Annie turned on the brass taps of the bathtub. A heady, fragrant mist plumed from the hot water as it flowed, the whole room fogging around her. Each cabinet was bursting to the brim with lotions and potions, pots and powders, bubbles and broths, like a blooming flower field for her to reach into and choose from. It felt a lot like picking flowers, knitting the spell together, snapping stems and plucking petals that were perhaps best left well alone. A flower picked for its perfection would soon begin to wilt, fading in a carefully considered bouquet made to be admired.

But every time that doubt crept in, she remembered her mother. The spell was a rite of passage among the Wildwood women through history. Cressida had been keen to induct her daughter as soon as her magic came to blossom, determined that Annie wouldn’t spoil all that she had spent her life curating. She thought her young daughter had a habit of ruining things with silly slip-ups.

Annie dabbled and debated between bottles of nectars and vials of elixirs, pulling out refined combinations of favourites while putting others back in as she changed her mind on the night’s mix. The recipe needed tweaking every now and again, usually in synchronicity with the full moon. Whenever the moon sat particularly plump among the clouds as she left the monthly Sorciety symposium, she knew it would be time to revise her alchemy. Time to take stock of where she needed to distil and define the qualities of herself. Her current blend would certainly need modifying for the coming month. Magic often went awry in October. The air was supercharged.

‘Rose petals, pearl dust, opal quartz . . .’ Annie muttered to herself, tucking the pastel-coloured trio of ingredients under her arm, the colours of a bursting summer dawn. The glasses clinked in a satisfying melody. ‘Adder’s tongue, fox scream, heather and feather. Maybe crow tonight . . .’ The dark shades of jet, smoke-grey and rust looked stark against her first choices. They made for an unsettling combination.

‘All people are a contrast,’ she said quietly, reasoning her decisions.

With a flourish, a pair of glasses appeared at the end of her nose, her vision a little less than perfect with the spell wearing off for the day. She held the ingredients up to the soft candlelight, checking that each looked as it should in texture and colour. The slightest flaw could really scupper things in the precise potion balance that she craved. They had to be the best of the best. Annie appreciated hallmarks of quality, promises of longevity, something to assure her that they wouldn’t let her down. Whether ingredients or shoes, handbags or people, those things were rare and important.

Satisfied with her decisions, Annie sent the selection of stoppered bottles, vessels and mysterious, miniature boxes cascading through the air, over the dark green floor tiles to levitate just above the full bathtub. The burgeoning heat from the water had brought a bloom of steam across the mirrors and a dampness to her cheeks. With concentration and methodical precision led by her magic, like a conductor stirring her orchestra to a final crescendo, each vial tipped its required amount into the water one after another. Gradually, the combination turned the water from a pale, crystalline blue to an intense, cardinal red.

Annie slipped off her clothes and dipped a toe to test it. She inhaled sharply through her teeth. She had found that increased heat made the most potent result, brought out the best in her. It was worth the pain, to be the best that she could be.

Some of the spell’s results were surface-level. Immaculate hair of course, long lashes, excellent teeth, unsmudgeable make-up, a hypnotizing scent, a dazzling smile.

But the spell ran deeper, too. Stiffly unwavering patience. Endless generosity with her time. A selflessness that made most decisions on her behalf. Always conscientious, welcoming and warm. Almost no sleep ever required. A supernatural problem-solving streak that anyone could call upon whenever they needed to.

Stepping into the potion was a path to perfection.

Annie stared determinedly at the chandelier, which blurred to a watery glow. She lay back against the tub, wincing just for one more second, before the scalding water finally brought its welcome numbness and she succumbed to it. When it felt comfortable, Annie slipped fully underneath the surface. Emerging again, pushing her wet hair away from her face, droplets of crimson water clinging to her lashes, she steeled herself to whisper the incantation. The water burst and bubbled between her lips as she spoke:

Fair price to pay for those who wish it.

A ghostly shadow to solicit.

No gift is free so here in smoke,

The dark mistakes of wicchefolk.

Surrounding whispers of their sadness,

Feel the stroke of regret’s madness.

Exchange the balance for my shine,

A pact that makes perfection mine.

They had been waiting patiently, poised for their cue. Wisps of steam that emanated from the hot water began to rise towards her voice. The curls of vapour moved upwards in hypnotizing movements for her to inhale, stretched smoke carrying up from the potion to the ceiling and fading into the bathroom’s cocooning warmth. The trails of spectral steam swayed and morphed like flames, until they blended into a smoke screen that engulfed Annie almost entirely.

It was hard to make out any specific features among them, but so much time spent with the spell meant that Annie had grown very familiar with the voices of the ghosts who came to visit her. Every night, when knitting the spell – the hex – together, she recognized their cries, their faces pulled in and out of focus, but never quite enough to see definitively. Figures amid the grey smoke were there one moment, barely visible, then gone. Before they could reveal themselves as more than an eerie blur, the mist blended faces and figures together into a drizzly grey.

She didn’t know their stories in detail, but she knew all about their mistakes. The pain that came from imperfection. That was the pact that Annie made for it all. Splendidus Infernum.

Annie gave a full-body shiver as the hot water turned ice-cold and the hex began. The figures around the tub always changed, impossible to pin down, but she knew the most haunted regulars and their faintest outlines. There was the cloudy image of the man with wire-rimmed glasses who cried to himself in secret, willing his breath to steady and stop the flow before anybody saw, terrified they’d find out his truth. The faceless lady with the thick plait swung over her shoulder, so plagued with guilt that she was confident it would be best to fade away entirely, to unburden the world. The young woman so filled with troubled, unanswered questions, wondering if she’d done the right thing, certain that she hadn’t, unable to ever come to terms with her decision.