Page 1

Chapter 1

Hiding her magic was tricky enough for Temperance Molland, without having to wake up every morning and see a great big hooked nose. Warts and all.

A crack of sunlight through her curtains and the creak from The Witch’s Nose wooden sign woke Temperance at 7am on the dot every morning. Whoever painted that sign for the pub was not a feminist: you could practically see the cartoony crone from the beach.

If Temperance didn’t already know that her family’s powers were less about casting magic and more about receiving and interpreting it, she would think her mum had somehow charmed that sign to creak when it did.

Her own little oak alarm clock.

Living next to a pub meant sleep was hard to come by on big, boozy Saturday nights – the least the old girl could do was let Temperance have a lie-in.

Not that Temperance herself had been out on a massive bender night before. Or for quite a few months, when it came down to it. The kind of hangover she was suffering with this morning was more of an emotional one, caused by a very crappy evening with a very crappy date. There’d been so many flirty messages, so much potential . . . But now, only sour disappointment rolled around the lining of her stomach. Temperance put her pillow over her face and let out a rage-induced scream.

‘Is that you up?’ her younger sister called across the landing.

Susie nudged the bedroom door open with her bum, dislodging some flaky sky-blue paint from its surface. She was holding two mugs and blowing her droopy, red fringe out of her eyes. ‘Look: it’s your darling sister – some would say personal maid – bringing you a hot cup of tea first thing in the morning!’

‘Hmmm.’ Temperance took the mug and her fingertips danced on the ceramic surface as the heat reached out to meet her skin. ‘I know what this is.’

Susie fluttered her almost translucent lashes. ‘What?’

In some ways, Temperance and Susie were as half as half-sisters could be: Temperance with her dark hair, olive skin and a tendency to overthink and overreact, all of which meant she stuck out like a sore thumb in their tiny Devon village. Whereas Susie was pale skinned, found it easy to charm anyone into laughter and could enter and leave a room without causing even a hint of a fuss. Like one of the Devon fairy folk, but at five feet eight inches.

Despite their differences, there was so much more that united the Molland sisters: their love of vintage fashion, their kindness and compassion, their limitless appetite for doughnuts, that they would fight for the other to the death, and their deep sense of belonging in East Prawle – just like The Witch’s Nose, they were pretty much a part of the landscape.

‘You want to distract me with tea so you can get a read on my clothes from last night. Admit it.’

Susie feigned shock. ‘Me? Never!’ She laid down her mug on top of Temperance’s most recent paperback and slipped her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. ‘But seeing as we’re on the subject . . .’

Temperance let out a long sigh. ‘Go on then. On the chair.’ Temperance nodded at where she’d slung her deep green velvet wrap top the night before.

Susie barely drew breath before lunging towards it, holding out her hand. Temperance watched as one velvet sleeve rose into the air to meet Susie’s touch. ‘Suse!’

‘What? You’re literally the only person I’m allowed to do that in front of! What is the point of a power if you keep it switched off all the time? It’s like Blackpool Illuminations left unplugged.’

Half-sisters they may be, but Temperance and Susie had both fully inherited their mother’s gift; the gift of the Molland line. They were intrinsically attuned to the deeper energies of the world, energies most people didn’t realise were swirling about them every day. Just like all matter exists as atoms – atoms that break down and reform, time and again – all emotions are made up of energy that doesn’t just evaporate once a feeling has been felt. An emotion radiates from a person and it can either slip back into the big invisible network of living energy, or it can accidentally cling to something nearby, a memory of its former self. The Molland women could read the emotions, the memories that clung onto fabrics. None of them knew exactly why clothes had this property: maybe it was the weave of their fibres that held feelings close, maybe it was the body heat that gave them extra life, or maybe it was because clothes are like a second skin, like our armour to the outside world and always closest to our hearts. But it seemed to the Molland women that the clothes you wore were almost like a butterfly net, gently scooping up the fluttering, beating, delicate feelings of a soul. It was their job to set those butterflies free again.

If someone was overwhelmed by a huge feeling, that emotion would live on in the clothes they’d been wearing. Temperance could pick up a donated wedding dress and tell you if the bride had serious doubts on the morning of her big day. Susie could root through a donation box and pick out the polka dot skirt that had been worn to an excellent karaoke night, next to the silk Bond Street tie that someone had worn snuggly around their neck when they lost a job. Nobody was quite sure how far back through the generations this gift went, their mum not really being on great speaking terms with her own parents, but it only ever presented itself in the women. The memories remained vivid and overpowering even years or decades later, almost as if the previous owner had spilt a whole bottle of their signature scent on the garment before donating it to Try Again, their vintage clothing store.

And because these emotions were their own form of energy, and the Molland women were like lightning rods to receive them, it was as if there was something in the very fibres of fabrics that physically seemed drawn to Temperance and Susie. With a little mental concentration, the sisters could pull a garment into their hands like a magnet lifting dressmakers’ pins. No more than one at a time, and not all that far – it was hardly Luke Skywalker using the Force to shift an entire spaceship – but still, being able to lift an inanimate object half a foot into the air was an impressive feat. Just one that they couldn’t show anyone else in the outside world. The powers of being a witch came part and parcel with all the fears and worry of being judged as one, so the Mollands kept that party trick within their four walls. Susie somewhat begrudgingly, as Temperance knew she’d been working on being able to tuck a napkin into her T-shirt with her hands held behind her back. If given full reign, she’d be displaying that trick at the pub for all comers.

‘Lazy arse. Just grab it and get it over with,’ Temperance said, her voice flat.

Susie plonked herself down on the corner of the bed, the top spread out over her knees. She closed her eyes, letting her fingers wave side to side over the velvet pile, turning it by increments, lighter then darker. The familiar tingling sensation started in her fingertips, travelling to her palms as she opened herself up to the memories in the fabric.

Susie could see snatches of a misty scene in her mind’s eyes.

A pub table, two chairs.

The rest of the picture was blank.

A tall man, early thirties, sat opposite her. Carefully managed stubble. He’s talking, on and on, and soundbites pop through the mist:

‘You just think you don’t like wine: let me school your palette.’

‘But surely you don’t want to work in a second-hand shop all your life?’

‘Service here is shocking, you know. I’m not sure I will tip this time.’