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‘Ahuh.’ With all the coolness she could muster, Temperance slipped out her phone and started texting at the speed of light.

STEVIE, R U awake?! Bring tongs & plastic bag from kitchen. Mark’s jacket is outside pub. Put in bag, meet at store. DON’T TOUCH, REMEMBER xxx

‘So I’ll let you guys catch up, and I’ll just get this all back to the kitchen.’ Temperance just about managed to pick up the two laden chopping boards without creating an accidental salad.

As she went inside, she found Abel at one of the counters, a snorkelling mask over his eyes and a sharp knife in hand. ‘Don’t say a word,’ he muttered, ‘it’s the onions.’

‘Could not be less bothered,’ she said quickly, dumping her cargo and legging it towards the door. ‘Tell Margie I’ll be back later.’

His eyes followed the whip of her dark hair as she hurried around the corner.

Chapter 21

Stevie’s lips were so firmly pressed together that they had almost disappeared. It was the only way she could trust herself not to blurt out a line from Hocus Pocus or even, if really desperate, Macbeth. But here she was, living her amateur wiccan dreams, about to assist a real-life witch with real-life magic.

‘Luckily I had this ready to use.’ Temperance held up a glass bottle with an old-fashioned stopper. Inside were large, flat leaves, what looked like bright green sprinkles and tiny buttery-yellow flower heads, all floating in crystal-clear water. ‘I prepared it for the red robe, but I think soul-sapping powers are more important that intensely horny ones.’

‘Huh?’

‘I’ll explain once this is steeping. Remember – tongs at all times. Turns out this baby is pretty potent. It sent Mark from a heritage hero into a timid little country mouse. We need his grit and ambition back because it turns out he was on our side all along.’

Stevie carefully pulled Mark’s leather jacket out of the bag by her feet using the tongs from the Molland kitchen. She gingerly hoisted it into the bucket in the middle of the shop’s back garden. Temperance unstoppered the bottle and poured over the mixture F had recommended as a cure-all neutralising potion for really big emotions. She willed everything in her being that it would do the trick. With a beach bucket of sea water as the last ingredient in this chancy cocktail, Temperance stirred it around and around until she felt the whole jacket was submerged. She knelt down, placing her hands around either side of the bucket and closing her eyes.

She hoped that Susie might have guessed what her big sister was up to back in the pub, what with her weirdly specific questions about Mark’s belongings. If she did, she’d be trying to keep Mark busy for a while, so Temperance could have a stab at undoing their grade-A royal fuck-up.

‘Uhm, should I . . .?’ Stevie’s voice went squeaky and tapered off when Temperance opened one eye. ‘I mean, what do I do now? I’ll help however I can.’

‘It’s kind of a bloodline thing at this point. I’m going to focus on what I want the magic to do while I’m making contact with the jacket. Usually, I’d put my hands directly on it, but whatever we did to it is super toxic, so the bucket will have to do.’

Stevie grimaced. ‘You really gave him deadly nightshade, huh?’

‘Not directly.’ Temperance squirmed. ‘Just into a garment that he wears most days.’

Stevie played with the hairs above her ear. ‘It’s not what I thought witchcraft would be like.’

‘It’s not.’

‘Hmm, it kinda feels like . . . I don’t know how to say this . . .’

‘It’s OK, you can say anything to me.’

‘Kinda feels like you drugged him,’ Stevie blurted.

Temperance spluttered. ‘What? No! We put the enchantment on his jacket, not directly on him. And we didn’t want him to get ill or anything, just take down his capitalist greed a notch or two. Which, in fact, he didn’t have. Quite the opposite. If we wanted to poison him, we could have just slipped the belladonna into a sambuca shot, to be honest.’

Stevie grimaced. ‘The calm way that you said that is very disturbing to me.’

‘But I wouldn’t. We got it wrong this time, stupendously wrong, but our intentions were good. Susie had a really strong vision and when we put that together with how Mark was acting . . . we just got the wrong end of the stick. But our hearts were in the right place.’

Still Stevie frowned. ‘I just think if you’re going to play with people’s emotions you’ve got to have . . . maybe, like, two-step authentication? Not just some vibes and hunches, but actual proof of wrongdoing. Feels like a slippery slope, right? Like Sabrina the Teenage Vigilante.’

Temperance sat down on the grass with a thump. ‘God. Yes. We were all fired up by our panic and fear, and took some pretty drastic action. You’re right, Stevie. We need proper proof before we ever tackle anything like this again. Don’t suppose you fancy a side hustle as a coven apprentice too, do you? I think we need some dedicated help on this front, not just in the store.’

‘Are you kidding?!’ The sparkle came back to Stevie’s eyes. ‘YES!’

‘Brill. First job in this new role is to go and make yourself a cuppa and put your feet up – we have given you a rough twelve hours and you’re going to need some decompressing time.’

‘How do you decompress in a coven?’