Page 29 of Uncharmed

‘Maeve, I—’

‘This is all just to make you feel better about yourself. You might think I’m a complete joke, but guess what? I think you are.’

Maeve’s fingers sparked like tinder. Hearing the crackle of uncertain magic, Karma’s ears scooted back and she meowed dubiously. Her claws flexed into the soft fabric of the cushion, aware that trouble was brewing.

The overhead light flickered. Annie’s eyes darted to the ceiling. ‘Woah, woah. Let’s just take a breather, we can have another biscuit.’

‘I don’t want a bloody biscuit. Don’t tell me what to do. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me!’

Both witches spun around to the kitchen, but quicker than their eyes could carry, the contents of the cauldron that Annie had left simmering for dinner burst into a blindingly bright blue flame. A sudden jet of fire flared across the length of the stove. It lit up the whole downstairs with a jet-propelled whoosh and hot embers flew in a streak to the hems of the gingham curtains. They burst into flames.

Karma jumped up with a yowl, the tip of her tail almost reaching the ceiling at the shock. Paws skittering across the floor, she bolted from the back of the sofa straight out of the open front door. Frantic claws scratched across the wooden porch and landed with a thud into the meadow.

‘Karma!’ Annie scrambled around the sofa, tea spilling everywhere. She quickly shot a spell to extinguish the flames as she moved, but it was barely a second thought.

She was chasing after her familiar before she could even allow two logical thoughts to chain themselves together. Hidden entirely by the long grass, Karma had already vanished. But Annie’s feet kept moving. Somewhere, she registered a thudding beat onto the wet, muddy ground. Her own bare feet. She willed herself to run faster, chasing a distant rustle in the grass ahead. Her vision blurred. The meadow was a smear of tickling grass and clouds, the skyline of the woodland a smashed amber glass, streaks of orange and red and brown somewhere in her periphery. Nothing felt real. She could only feel fear and confusion and dread – maybe her own or maybe Karma’s. Maybe there wasn’t any difference. She had to find her.

Chapter Twelve

SWEET KARMA

Annie was not much of a runner. Endorphins could allegedly make her happy, but she firmly believed that a slice of cake could normally make her much happier. But if anything was going to make her run, it was the need to find her familiar. She would run to the ends of the earth if she needed to, if it meant that she could protect her heart’s link. Annie broke through the trees and left the meadow behind for the woodland, with no choice but to trust that her affinity would take her the right way. Eventually, she had to stop, folding over to rest her hands on her knees and catch her breath.

‘Annie, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Maeve came sprinting behind her, much less winded by the exertion but maybe even more visibly upset. She fiercely wiped at her wet cheeks. ‘Did you see which way she went?’

‘She bolted somewhere up there,’ Annie said, fighting to get her breath back. ‘Maeve, wait . . .’ Before she could finish, Maeve ran off to blindly follow the direction of Annie’s vague pointing, quickly vanishing into the trees. Annie winced and pulled herself back up to rejoin the desperate search party.

‘Maeve, please hang on a second.’ She caught up and tugged at Maeve’s dungarees strap to make her stop. ‘I shouldn’t have pelted after her like that. It probably only made her more scared. If we stop for a moment, I can tune into our affinity and listen properly to my instincts. But I do need to be able to breathe to do that.’

Maeve, now gasping for air, too, nodded as she tightened her ponytail and pushed her glasses back up her nose. They slid straight back down with the sheen of sweat across her skin. Annie inhaled deeply to reset, the sharpness of cold air filling her nose. Another, slowly in and out. A gust of wind breathed through the chestnut trees that canopied above, sending her hair flying back and a smattering of auburn leaves fluttering down like a whisper. Gradually, it grounded her. Then, after making space in her mind, she caught it faintly on the breeze: that sweet, powdery scent that could always soothe her soul, the one that smelt like home.

‘This way,’ Annie said softly. It could have been their intrinsic familiar connection or maybe it was all the magic that she had felt carrying on the air around the cottage, but something told her that she didn’t need to panic. All four paws had stepped into a safe space. Her heartbeat regulated the smallest amount. The aura around the woodland seemed to change from red to amber, to a gentler gold as she thought of Karma. It was vast and labyrinth-like and unwelcoming to a prim and proper house cat, but her heart knew as they began to walk that Karma was okay. It was just a matter of time until they found her. She gestured to Maeve to follow her, heading in the direction that the magic tugged her towards.

‘Do you know where she is?’ Maeve asked quietly after some time.

‘No, but I know she’s okay. The sense of danger has dropped,’ Annie replied gently. ‘She won’t be happy with you that she’s had to get her paws muddy, but I promise we’ll find her and she’ll be fine.’

Maeve sniffed and wiped her nose with her wrist. ‘I really am sorry, Annie.’

‘I know.’

‘I didn’t mean to scare her. I would never want to do that.’

‘I know that, too.’

‘I’m sorry for loads of stuff, actually. Yesterday. And today. And now this. I just . . .’ Maeve broke off whatever it was that she was pushing herself to share, swallowing it down to keep to herself. Annie only nodded, sensing the regret, then gestured with her chin for them to keep walking. The pair walked side by side in silence, occasionally clicking and calling for Karma as their bare feet scuffed through the dirt. It said a lot that Annie was too focused on finding her familiar to be disgusted by the state of her filthy pedicure.

‘You can tell me,’ Annie said softly after a time, reaching out to put a gentle arm around Maeve’s shoulder. For the first time, she didn’t flinch away. In fact, she leaned into it, needing to be held.

‘It’ll sound stupid,’ Maeve muttered.

‘Sweetheart, if we don’t start being honest with one another about how this feels, we’re never going to make any progress. It’s just going to be exploding pumpkins and me driving you to the edge of insanity until the coven decides that we’re both officially and categorically useless.’

Maeve gave an emphatic sigh. ‘I just feel so much, all at once. Everything feels massive, all of the time. And I don’t know where to put any of it. It bursts out of me before I can figure out how to shrink it back down again. It’s like everything is just expanding inside of me until, before I know it, I’ve blown something up or set fire to something and ruined it. I’ve always blown up in one way or another, but it used to just be my temper acting alone. Now there’s bloody magic involved to make it happen literally, too.’

Annie found that she related so acutely in many ways to the revelation that she wasn’t sure whether she could even admit to it out loud. Annie knew what it was to feel. Even when she felt nothing, it was still an enormous kind of nothing. A huge, cavernous, swallowing nothing.

‘You know, it might seem like we’re very different types of people, Maeve. But I do understand what you mean,’ Annie said, resisting turning her head to look at the girl. The magic of walking side by side was that people could tumble into their own thoughts while sharing them, more for themselves than the other. Eye contact risked snapping that careful, fragile bridge.