Page 38 of Witchlore
“It didn’t just happen to you,” Kira says. Her eyes are shimmering slightly but her voice is clear. An impending sense of dread rises inside of me. I imagine this is what Pandora felt like, this sense that I’ve started something I’m not ready for.
“I was the one who was there, Kira,” I say, thinking that if I can cut her off at the knees with this then she’ll stop talking and she can’t say the devastating things that I can see building in her glassy eyes. “Don’t tell me how it happened.”
“I’m not going to. What I meant was that you talk about what happened like it only happened to you.” Kira’s voice hasn’t changed volume, but her south Manchester tone is so sharp it could cut me. “She had parents who loved her, parents who are getting a divorce now. She had a coven, a family of witches bigger than you imagine; there are loads of people who were completely devastated by this. She might have been your girlfriend, but she wasn’t just yours, Lando.”
It’s too much to bear, so I turn and walk away from her, my heart racing, hoping she doesn’t follow me, and my cheeks burning as I bustle past the scone ladies watching me flee. I’m practically panting as I go through the circular doors, jogging down the marble steps to see Bastian leaning against one of the librarypillars, watching the rain hammer down against the stone flags of St. Peter’s Square.
“Are you okay?” he asks, frowning. I nod, struggling to catch my breath. My face is damp from the rain mist and I stare out at passing businessmen hurrying through the downpour with umbrellas. Rain like this always clears the square; bustling tour groups, usually standing in front of the war memorial and the statue of Mrs. Pankhurst, are huddled for shelter under the cover of the library’s portico front, the rain practically falling in sheets between the columns. It’s too many bodies and a small space, and right now, I’d rather be out there, in the dreadful weather, than inside with Kira Tavi.
“I’ve got a tram to catch,” I say to Bastian, pulling my hood up and preparing to run across the sheets of water covering the square and the tram tracks.
“Wait.” Bastian grabs my arm to stop me, moving closer so he isn’t overheard. He smells like rain and sweat and damp wool. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
No, not at all,I answer in my head.It’s not just my fault she’s dead, it’s my fault dozens of people are devastated.
“Yep,” I say. Even if Kira was trying to tell me something truthful, that maybe Bastian isn’t everything he seems, even if it’s somehow all a big lie, what does it matter? The point of all this is to get Elizabeth back and then maybe everything that Kira said won’t be so damaging. Her parents will be healed, her friends will be comforted, and I won’t have to bear the weight of the guilt of all those things, because if she hadn’t been with me, she would never have died in the first place. When Bastian continues to look at me, I add, “I just need to get on with this. The spell.”
His frown clears and a particularly knowing look crosses his face.
“We are,” he says. “Lytham next and then we’ll be two ingredients down.”
“Two down,” I repeat, the words a spell in themselves, pushing me on, back to Elizabeth.Two down.We step out into the rain. Together.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
“What is that?” I ask on Saturday, staring down at the car that’s parked up on the pavement outside Beryl’s.
“It’s a Mini Cooper,” he says. It’s avintageMini, it’s blue and rusted, and the longer I look at it, the smaller and less reliable it looks.
“No,” I say, stepping back and shaking my head. I’d expected that Bastian would be borrowing his dad’s car, something sleek and silver with a new-car smell.
“No what?”
“No, I’m not getting in that death trap!” I exclaim, bending down to look in the tattered interior. “Couldn’t your dad buy you a car thatwon’tcrumple like a soup can on impact?”
I see from the taut look on his face that I’ve said completely the wrong thing.
“It’s Mum’s,” he says.
“Ah.” Once again, my verbal diarrhea has got the better of me. Out of respect to his totally understandable sentimentality, I gingerly open the door. “Well. It’s cute. In a kind of deadly way.”
Bastian smiles gratefully.
“I’m a very safe driver. Only one minor correction on my test.”Bastian raises an eyebrow at me and then folds himself into the driver’s seat. It’s quite comical, really, because he’s so tall.
“You look like a clown getting into a clown car,” I say.
“I’m not sure you’re in the position to be calling someone a clown.” Bastian looks significantly at my rainbow jumper and the ridiculous jeans I embroidered myself. I feel so much better about my form now I’m wearing a binder again.
“Hey, this is the queer joy on display.” I spread my arms wide and do a spin. When I look at him again, he’s smiling and it’s almost fond. I try, very hard, to feel nothing.
“Queer sarcasm, more like,” Bastian says with a laugh, leaning over and throwing open the passenger door. “Come on.”
I reluctantly climb in beside him, putting my backpack down in the footwell. I buckle myself in and instantly wish for one of those massive harnesses that descends down over your shoulders on the Smiler roller coaster at Alton Towers. I brace myself as Bastian puts it in gear with a crunch and we shudder toward the motorway, following the signs for Blackpool.
The rain that has been pouring in Manchester since Thursday, alternating between horrendous downpour and bone-chilling drizzle, has stopped for a rare moment. As we bomb up the M60, everything is damp and shiny, a glittering Saturday, the light reflecting off puddles in the road. High above the Trafford Centre and the M60 bridge and spinning out over the far hills of north Manchester, the sun is low and the clouds scattered and misty, as ragged as an old pair of trousers. It’s all so fresh and beautiful and I’m going on an adventure, so suddenly I’m filled with an unusual inexplicable delight at the world.
“So are we driving straight to the town?” I ask.
