Page 49

Running from the clap of thunder, the white burst of lightening, the roll of smoke around her head. The fire was spreading; it was spreading to the village. She had to get there. Before . . . before . . .

Suddenly, someone was standing on the path in front of her, screened by thick, grey smoke. But were they blocking the path or had they come to rescue her?

She opened her mouth, her hand at her throat.

But she couldn’t make a sound.

Temperance sat up in bed.

‘Shit!’ she yelled, bringing Susie bursting through her door.

‘What? What’s happened?’

Temperance dragged her hands down her face. ‘It didn’t work! This morning, at the beach: it didn’t work. I had the nightmare again, only this time it was worse.’

Susie flopped onto the bed next to her. ‘Oh fuck. So we’re still in doom times?’

‘Seems like it.’ Susie got her phone out her back pocket and started typing frantically. ‘I’m having a major magical crisis and you’re texting?!’

The little sister bit her lip. ‘Not texting. Googling.’

‘What?’

‘Witch premonitions: storms and fire.’

Temperance gulped back a sticky lump in her throat. ‘What does it say?’

‘Well, the first history site that comes up is about this woman, Mother Shipton. Born in the 1400s.’ Her eyes scanned the screen. ‘She lived in a cave, with a skull-shaped rock pool. Made herbal potions for those in need. And . . . accurately predicted the Great Fire of London and the Spanish Armada.’ Susie shivered.

‘I was hoping you’d find something a bit more reassuring than that.’

‘Me too.’ Susie squeezed her big sister’s hand. ‘We’ll email F again, see if they have any other tricks up their sleeve. Some bigger magic. How are you feeling?’

‘I mean, pretty wired, what with the magic and the – um – broken sleep before dawn and then this. I suppose I—’

Susie sucked in air between clenched teeth. ‘Is there a chance you could pull all of that together in the next half an hour and come to the pub with me?’

‘What? Now?’

Her little sister nodded. ‘It’s actually 11.30 – you slept in. And seeing as his jacket was dry, I texted Mark to come for lunch. He’ll be there at twelve. Time to plant some devious little magical seeds, Tee.’

Temperance gave a sigh of defeat. ‘OK, I’ll get up. Let’s hope this bit of F’s advice actually does the trick.’

‘And one more thing?’ Susie held up a finger.

‘Yes?’

‘You really need a shower. You smell like you’ve just done the marathon in an acrylic knit.’

Temperance swung her legs out of bed and snatched a towel from her radiator. ‘You could have at least brought me some tea.’

Temperance picked slowly at the crab salad sandwich Susie had ordered for her by way of an apology as she started her shift at the pub and went into the back to start prepping for the evening rush She watched the door, waiting for Mark to stroll in. So much depended on the belladonna having the effect F had promised them. Who knows if there would even be a pub to have a crab sandwich in in two years’ time if it didn’t?

She’d been trying to ignore the presence of Abel in the room as he aggressively rubbed down the bar top, using about ten times as much CIF as you’d need to clean the hull of a boat. Every time his forearm muscle tenses and flexed, Temperance would have another flashback to the saucy dreams she’d had. Each reminder was a cocktail of overwhelming sensations: a squeeze of annoyance across her forehead that Abel Gulliver could still have such a visceral effect on her; a lurch of guilt in her stomach that she was somehow harassing him by making Dream Abel carry out every single one of her sexual fantasies without the real Abel’s knowledge; and a deep tightening between her legs when her libido betrayed her better sense, aching to experience those dreams all over again.

As Abel leant right over the bar to reach the far edge, scrubbing away with a particularly vocal huff, Temperance saw a flash of him bending her over the desk in her living room and

she snapped. ‘What is UP with you?’