Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered

In the second – the one I was currently torturing myself with – she was tall and beautiful with swishy hair and a stylish wardrobe. I imagined her and Dom spending weekends lounging around their fabulous Hampstead home – in truth all I knew was they lived in North London somewhere – with their fabulous friends. Right now, they’d be spooning in their huge sleigh bed. I shuddered at the thought.

Pushing the image out of my head I turned on the engine and drove out of the airport on to the main road. I was on my way and I was more than a little bit nervous. In fact, I was terrified.

Since I left home, I’d been very definitely in my Dad’s camp. Not that he and Mum’s separation – before I was even born – had been particularly acrimonious. They were just utterly mismatched. My loyalty was with my dad, even though I loved my mum. Her witchiness, if that’s even a word, was just too much for me.

My parents met back in the early 80s. Mum was in her late 20s. She’d come home for the summer, running from a doomed love affair in Glasgow, where she lived. Dad – a few years older, handsome in his RAF uniform, literally fell for her.

My mum had climbed one of the hills overlooking the village and was lying on the grass, planning what she was going to do with her life. Dad was on his way back to the RAF base a few miles away after a brisk jaunt up the slope – and he tripped over her. Not the most romantic meeting, but something about the woman with short white-blonde hair and big blue eyes won him over.

Needless to say, my mum’s plans that she’d made that day didn’t include falling for a slightly conservative, very ambitious military man. And they definitely didn’t include getting pregnant just a few months into their relationship. If she could have seen that far ahead (yes I know some witches can do that, but our lot can’t, more’s the pity) I’m also sure she wouldn’t have seen my dad sent off to the Falklands before she’d even plucked up the courage to tell him she was pregnant. Or the injury that sent him behind a desk in a base in the Cotswolds.

Anyway, Mum was pregnant, lonely and living at home in the Highlands with her mum and Dad was miserable, nursing a gammy leg and readjusting to life after the war. It was never going to work. But to their credit they’ve never made me feel like I’d missed out. I lived with Mum and Gran, until she died when I was twelve, as well as Suky and Harry. I spent holidays with Dad – and later with his wife, Olivia, and their two boys. Olivia is posh and groomed and brilliantly clever and our relationship, while not wonderful, isn’t as terrible as it could be. She tolerates me and I try not to annoy her too much. Or make a mess in her house.

Mum claims she told Dad the truth about our family when she realised she was falling for him. Dad, though, doesn’t seem to know. I think it’s a bit like that cheesy Loch Ness film – you remember? ‘You have to believe before you can see’. And Dad just doesn’t believe. He jokes about our ‘lotions and potions’ but as far as he’s concerned, witchcraft is just a hobby.

The road was quiet as I drove north. Occasionally the lights of another car would blaze through the darkness, making me blink as they swept past, but for most of the time I was alone. I put on the radio but it interfered with my thoughts, so I switched it off again.

I squinted through the windscreen, trying to get my bearings in the lashing rain. Not much further. I felt sick with nerves and as I passed a sign for a B&B I had to use all my willpower not to turn off the road and spend the night.

I felt odd about going home after avoiding it for so long. My emotions were muddled and I veered from being nervous about seeing my family to looking forward to hearing all their news, and of course I was desperately worried about Suky. Mum had filled me in about her illness on the phone but I’d never met anyone with cancer before. I didn’t know what to expect and I was terrified of the unknown.

I could feel myself getting stressed as I thought about home so I tried to put my worries aside and concentrate on driving. The weather was getting worse and the narrow roads weren’t as familiar as they used to be.

Leaning forward in my seat, I drove carefully, peering through the rain and gloom, fearful I would hit a deer, until eventually, with my shoulders tense and a stiff neck, my headlights shone upon a large road sign.

Loch Claddach welcomes careful drivers, it proclaimed in tartan-edged, tourist-friendly glory. Breathing a sigh of relief I jammed on the brakes and juddered to a halt underneath the garish sign. I was home.

I turned off the engine and sat in the car, listening to the rain drumming on the roof, while I tried to make sense of the way I was feeling. My head was pounding from the effort of driving and I was bursting with mixed emotions. I couldn’t arrive in such a mess. I pulled my hairbrush from my bag and pulled my hair out of its twist, then I brushed it and pinned it up again, using my reflection in the windscreen in the dim light.

According to Mum, Suky had found a lump in her breast a month ago but went to the doctor’s alone and kept quiet while she went for tests. Only when she was diagnosed did she come home and let her sister know what was happening.

‘It was awful, Esme,’ Mum had told me on the phone. ‘We were having a glass of wine and talking about our day, just like normal. She said she’d had a tough day and then she just blurted it out. “Don’t be upset,” she said. How could I not be upset?’

That had been last week. Suky had already had an operation to remove her lump and she was now facing weeks of radiotherapy at the hospital in Inverness. I felt terrible for her and guilty that Mum or Harry hadn’t called me straightaway.

I felt remote and detached from my family. But it wasn’t surprising, I thought as I shoved my hairbrush back in my bag and gripped the steering wheel once more. I hardly ever came home. Occasionally, I’d fly in for Christmas, arriving on the 24

and leaving again on the 26

. One year I even got the sleeper and arrived on Christmas Day itself. The last time I’d come home was a few years ago now. I’d come up for a family reunion on Halloween, part of me hoping my attendance would be an olive branch that could rebuild my relationship with my mum. But it had been an unmitigated disaster. I’d felt hopelessly out of my depth among family members who looked vague and disappointed when I talked about my law degree and who conjured up cakes and entertainment at the drop of a (witch’s) hat. When a great aunt – who hadn’t managed to make the trip from her home in Australia – materialised in the living room, her flickery image like the recording of Princess Leia in Star Wars, I legged it. I faked a call from a neighbour, pretended a pipe had burst and ran for the airport. It was Halloween again in a couple of weeks, I thought now. I sincerely hoped I would be safely back in London by then.

My mind was whirling from guilt to dread and back again as I sat in the cold car and looked at my old hometown though the rain. But most of all I was worried about Suky. Sweet, kind-hearted Suky, who sent me first letters, then emails after I’d left home, keeping me up to date with the family’s news and making sure – in fact – that I was still part of the family. But she hadn’t shared this news. I hadn’t had so much as a hint.

I wiped the steamed-up windscreen with a gloved finger and peered out into the dreary night. I could see rows of darkened cottages, and beyond them, St Columba’s church, with its spire lit up to impress the tourists. Not that there were likely to be many of them around on a cold October night.

Shivering, I turned the engine on again and turned the heater up to full. I drove forward and followed the road through town at a snail’s pace. I knew I didn’t need to drive that slowly, despite the weather, but somehow I couldn’t make myself speed up. I didn’t want to go home, I finally admitted to myself. I was too scared about what I might find there.

I shook my head, trying to dislodge the miserable thoughts that were stuck there, trod down the accelerator accidentally, and nearly drove the car up the pavement and into a post box. I grimaced.

‘Get a grip,’ I told myself out loud.

Clutching the steering wheel, I drove at a more sensible speed up the hill, past my old primary school and the neat little house where my headmistress still lived, and parked outside the house where I’d grown up.

Typically, while every other house in town was cloaked in darkness, ours blazed with light. I smiled, in spite of my misgivings, and turned off the engine. I took a deep breath, then I got out of the car and pulled my bags from the back seat. I stood still for a minute, determined to savour the silence before I went in.

Suddenly the front door flew open. My mother stood there, silhouetted against the bright hallway. I could see her short hair sticking up and she held a wine glass in one hand as she peered out into the darkness.

‘Esme!’ She sounded pleased. ‘I thought it’d be you. Come in! Come away from the rain.’

Chapter 5 (#ulink_9b258637-0d39-5243-9b95-63a5330589a1)

I stumbled across the gravel driveway, my bag banging against my legs. Mum tried to sweep me into a hug, but my bag and my stiff stance made it awkward. We stared at each other for a minute, then she grabbed my holdall, turned and led the way down the hall to the kitchen.

‘How is she?’ I asked. I wanted to perch on a stool like I used to when I’d come home from school and share my day with Mum while she cooked our tea, but I didn’t. Instead, I hovered by the kitchen door like an uninvited guest.

Mum filled the kettle and paused to switch it on before she answered.

‘She’s not good,’ she said quietly. ‘She had her first radiotherapy session today and it seems to have knocked the stuffing out of her. But she’ll be pleased to see you.’ She nodded towards the living room. ‘Why don’t you go and say hello?’

Nervously I crept into the front room where Suky was asleep on the enormous squidgy sofa with a blanket over her legs. She looked pale and thin and it took me a huge effort not to gasp when I saw her.

Mum had followed me in from the kitchen and she put her hand on my shoulder gently.

‘It’s all happened so fast – she’s exhausted,’ she said. ‘She’s keeping her spirits up, though.’

I looked at my beautiful, lively aunt, hunched under a blanket like an old lady and rounded on Mum.

‘Why can’t you help her?’ I hissed in a loud whisper. ‘Isn’t this what you witches do?’

Mum shook her head.

‘You sound like Harry,’ she said with a sad smile. ‘She’s been on the phone non-stop with theories she’s found and spells to try. But messing with life and death is dangerous, Esme. That’s not our sort of magic. We just have to help her the best we can.’

I shrugged. Magic was magic as far as I was concerned, and this house was full of it. It positively crackled through every room and hung around Mum like a force field. Harry’s the aura reader in our family, but even my unpractised eye could see Suky’s power was dim and wavery, like a candle about to burn out. It made me shiver with fear for her.

‘I’ll help,’ I whispered to Mum, so as not to wake Suky. ‘What can I do?’

Mum gestured with her head and I followed her back into the kitchen, closing the door behind me. I made for the kettle but Mum handed me a glass of wine instead.

‘What can I do?’ I repeated. Mum took a swig of wine and visibly braced herself.

‘We need a Third,’ she said.

I looked at her in horror. I’d been expecting to ferry Suky to appointments, do a Tesco run, maybe whip up a lasagne. I’d definitely not planned to become a vital cog in the coven’s wheel.

Because a coven is basically what we had here. Witches, you see, are sociable souls. And they’re obsessed with the number three. Oh we can all do magic on her own but for the really good stuff to happen, there needs to be three. Mum and Suky worked with a witch called Eva. She had wafted into Claddach on the day of my Granny’s funeral and she’d been here ever since.

‘Does Eva know you’re asking me?’ I said now.