Page 8 of Uncharmed

‘Endless rumours, the Wildwoods’ magic stocks rising and plummeting so sharply . . . Suspicions were raised. Even Selcouth knew something was afoot and we all know they’re useless,’ Harmony prattled on, leaning so far forwards into the circle that she was almost bent in half. ‘Can you even imagine? It put our whole existence at risk. The coven could have discovered us. We really had no choice. My own father worked on the case, he told me everything. All the gory details.’

‘Much surveillance later and guess what? The Sorciety discovers that not only was he losing his own precious magic at careless, breakneck speed, but Cressida and Annie’s, too,’ Vivienne said.

Romily sipped calmly and quietly, as though she were lamenting the whole situation afresh. ‘Gambling his own wife and daughter’s magic. Can you even believe it? Such loser behaviour.’

Annie stayed quiet and picked at the iced detail on a biscuit marigold, the girls’ voices muffled in her head as though she were hearing them from underwater. She crumbled a sugar petal between her fingers.

‘His days here were numbered after that, of course,’ Vivienne concluded, stirring her short, honey-coloured cocktail with her finger in mid-air. Although over ice, the drink smoked dangerously in her palm, like a fire had just been put out inside the glass.

‘That’s . . . Wow, that’s awful,’ Ruby said.

‘Isn’t it just? I mean imagine risking the Sorciety like that. Something so prestigious and sacred, that’s been running the magical hierarchy for centuries. So reckless,’ Romily replied. Although not quite so unbridled as the other two, even she was purring as the gossip sparked and caught fire.

Ruby gave Romily a baffled look. ‘No, I mean awful for Annie. I’m sorry that happened to you.’

Annie shrugged it off, still smiling. ‘No need to apologize. Not too much of my magic was lost, thankfully. The same can’t be said for my mother’s powers but . . .’ She pushed down the bundle of memories that began to unravel itself. Stumbling, smashed glasses, slurred excuses, blurry apologies. ‘Mum and I were used to things falling apart and having to build them back together. He was an unpredictable man at the best of times.’

Although she knew it wasn’t her fault that her father had fled – she was a grownup who could acknowledge that other grownups made their own decisions of free will – Annie couldn’t help but still feel a strange responsibility for Griffin’s choices. It burdened her, even now, so many years later. It was a childlike part of her that she knew was formed from hurt, but that knowledge didn’t make it any easier to ignore that tugging question: What if?

What if she had behaved differently, been a better daughter, a more impressive, perfectly polished apple of his eye? Perhaps he wouldn’t have done the things he did. Perhaps she could have saved him, pulled him back from the brink. Years later, such an unanswered, whispered possibility clung to the walls of her mind like condensation in the cold.

‘What happened to your mom?’ Ruby asked.

The question that Annie always dreaded being asked – when she had to weigh up whether to lie or to dump the uncomfortable, ugly truth onto somebody she barely knew. ‘Strange things happen to a witch whose magic is taken from her,’ Annie said quietly. ‘She tried her best, but she couldn’t cope. She . . . she left to find him when I turned eighteen and never came back.’

Guilty by association with her husband’s misdemeanours, Cressida had faced the chop from the Sorciety without so much as a chance to defend herself. She took it admirably well – at least publicly. Privately, she began to wither in all ways, a hollowed spirit of the radiant woman that Annie had been in awe of her whole life.

‘That’s rough,’ Ruby replied gently, mouth squashed to the side in a diagonal line. ‘Families are messy.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Harmony said. ‘My family is rather neat and tidy.’

‘Blood is thicker than water,’ Vivienne said smugly. ‘And magic is thicker again.’

‘Always hated that phrase – usually tossed around by people who’ve never been let down by someone who’s supposed to put them above all else,’ Ruby said, brushing biscuity hands on her jeans. ‘From what I’ve learned over the years, families are never as shiny as they seem.’

The three witches looked at Ruby as though she had suddenly started speaking in tongues, a mixture of bewilderment and aversion on their faces. Annie heard Harmony mutter a quiet ‘Ew’.

‘Anyway,’ Romily said firmly, twirling the stick of glass-like fruit in her drink. ‘We’ve all moved on, haven’t we, Annie? You’ve done such a wonderful job at rebuilding what they left of the tattered Wildwood reputation.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Annie winced, spinning her own frothy, shimmering pink cocktail by the stem of the glass. ‘I’m just trying to not let anybody down. I’m forever grateful to still be welcome here and that you all stuck by me when you didn’t have to.’

‘As I keep telling you, patience is a virtue, babe,’ Romily said and gave her a wink. ‘You’re doing so well in your role at Selcouth and everyone here enjoys you immensely. You’ll earn your Crescent one of these days.’

Annie’s ears pricked up. ‘Is there any word on that? Has your mother mentioned anything? I know you said you were going to try to put a word in . . .’

Of the six significant families who governed the club, the Whitlocks, Cinders and Morningstars were half of them and Romily’s mother was the Supreme Herald at the helm of it all. They were yet to use their influence to help Annie win Crescent status at the Sorciety, the fully fledged membership that she was still desperate to secure to protect herself. As she spoke, all three seemed to flash their pins in unison, silver emblems of an overflowing cauldron wrapped in a pin-sharp crescent moon. Abundance and secrecy, the Sorciety’s most precious values.

Romily pulled a sad face at Annie. ‘Haven’t had a chance, babe. Honestly, between the solstice cruise and planning the Sorciety fundraisers for All Hallows, I’ve been run off my feet. I’m seeing Mummy for lunch next week so I’ll try again then, if she’s in a good mood.’

Annie was embarrassed to admit it now at thirty-two, but she had never questioned the Sorciety’s existence while growing up wrapped in its enticing caress. It was only when the Wildwoods fell dramatically from favour that it had opened her eyes, made her question its nature – and whether the claims of the spellborn could truly be considered fair.

As a child, she (often hand in hand with Romily) had dreamed of the night that her mother and father would include her in their surreptitious evenings. Alongside the Whitlocks, they would disappear for nights in their finery, leaving the girls with a nanny and a kiss on the head. There was never any explanation of where they were going. Her mother only ever whispered one clue to her, over and over, that had inked itself into Annie’s young mind: ‘To where everything is perfect.’

When she had finally been allowed to peer behind the curtain and join them in the Sorciety, Annie had blindly fallen in love with the beauty of it all, the way everything shone, the splendour matching up to her mother’s promise. Being included and accepted was too fragile a feeling to tinker with. Now that she was older and (allegedly) wiser, it was one of several problems with the magic system that felt unsettling.

But she was tangled in a sticky velvet spiderweb, one that kept her trapped within delicate silver strings, but still ensured she felt held and supported. The Sorciety was the closest thing she had to a family. Its fickle world could often leave her feeling lonely, but without it, she was truly alone. She owed them everything. She couldn’t let them down.

Annie just smiled.