The Impossible Spell – Written by Marianne Curley

Read a Sample – Chapter One

Charlotte

My phone rings as I climb into bed. I know before looking that it’s my best friend Abbie, since she’s the only friend I have. Lately, Abbie’s been talking of putting a spell on someone, and not just anyone, but a boy in our grade named Tristan Bonner. Tristan is a boy I have been in love with since I was six years old. Yeah, I know. Six. It’s a long story.

“Charlotte, you just have to help me. You’re the only one who can pull this off.”

“Abbie, you know I don’t work spells on people.”

“It’s not like I’m asking you to turn him into a fire-breathing, five-legged frog, it’s just that,” her voice drops, “we’re seniors now. Aren’t you tired of being invisible?”

I bite down on my lower lip to stop my first thoughts from tumbling out as they often do, because there’s an edge of desperation in Abbie’s voice that’s squeezing my heart. I understand it’s been hard for her since her family moved to Emerald Island four years ago. Her Dad had taken a job on the deep-sea oil rig, the same one where my father is the Chief Operating Officer. She’d walked into my Home Room and made for the seat beside me. I threw my arm across the desk and told her to sit somewhere else. She’d looked around, had to have spotted the other two empty places, but tilting her head she’d frowned, then pulled the chair out and sat. “You will regret this,” I’d told her. But she was ballsy, and I liked that. Maybe… just maybe she was strong enough to handle being my friend, to take the silence when I walked into a room and the scathing looks behind my back, and the nasty comments on social media.

“You can’t know what effect a spell might have on a person. We’re all different, Abbie. What if the spell works too well?”

I see her in my mind, lying with her flat belly across her bed, green eyes sparkling as she rolls onto her back and stares up at the fluorescent stars painted across her ceiling. “Even you aren’t that good a witch, Charlotte.”

I smile at her tactics. “Baiting me won’t work.”

“I wasn’t. Well, not much. Not really.”

“Abbie, here’s a thought, why don’t you try it?” Her silence is revealing. “Okay, what happened?”

“Nothing,” she snaps, then moans. “And that’s the problem. Nothing ever happens when I work a spell.”

“That’s not true. How many times did you try?”

“Just once. All right, three, maybe four times.”

She smothers my gasp with her pleading voice calling out, “See why I need you. See, Charlotte. Besides what’s the worst it could do?”

“Make him fall in love with you.” Crap, did I say that out loud? One day I’m going to stitch my lips together with a real needle and thread.

In the soft, insecure voice I’ve been hearing Abbie use too often lately, she asks, “Would that be so bad?”

I could give her a million reasons why it would be so bad, but instead I inhale a deep breath and force my mouth to stay shut. My waist-long hair drops out of its night-time plait. The colour of dirty snow, I run my fingers through it while I take the moment to think.

“Charlotte? Charlotte, are you still there?”

“It wouldn’t be natural,” I explain. “It would be like — I don’t know — cheating in an exam.”

She chuckles. “Okay, that’s weird, but I see what you mean.”

“Good. Now, since it’s the last night before school returns, we should get some—”

“For a second there, I thought you wanted him for yourself.”

I force my laugh to sound natural. “Why would you think that?”

“I see the way you stare after him.”

“That’s not true. So not true,” I lie. I’ve never told anyone how I feel about Tristan. “It’s just that he has a good butt.” I lie again, but thinking on it, that’s not a lie. He does have a good butt. He has a good everything. His basketball training, his morning surfs, his long weekend hikes through the rainforest make sure of that.

She takes a moment. “Are you positive, Charlotte? You’re not interested in Tristan Bonner? Your mothers used to be best friends. One wouldn’t go anywhere without the other, or so I’ve —”

I close my eyes against a swell of emotions, only just managing to stop tears forming, but I have no control over the words that come rushing out, “I’m not my mother. He’s all yours.” Where is a needle and thread when you need it? “Why would I want someone who walks the other way when he sees me coming?”

She scoffs. “He’s like all the other guys who think magic is a carpet ride to the doors of hell.”

“You’re probably right about that.”

“Probably? Charlotte, nobody looks at us, and that’s what I’m trying to change this year. You know I’m right.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“If Tristan starts talking to me, others will follow. It could change everything for us. It only takes one person to change the minds of a crowd. Okay, so it helps if he’s popular and insanely gorgeous. Please, Charlotte, say you’ll do it.”

“Let’s be clear, you want Tristan to notice you as he would any other girl in our grade.”

“Exactly. Well, at first.”

“What does that mean?”

“If this spell could get him to notice me enough to say, ‘Hey, Abbie, how’s it going?’ I’ll take it from there.”

“Here’s a thought, Abbie, why don’t you just go up to Tristan and say hello?”

Her laugh is so bitter I wish I hadn’t asked.

“Do you think I haven’t tried? Do you think he only walks the other when he sees you?”

“If I cast a spell and it doesn’t work, I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be, I’ll just hate you forever.” In my silence she hurriedly tags on, “Kidding! I’m totally kidding. So, you’ll do it?”

“If it works, he’ll probably say hello to the back of your tonsils.”

“Well, it would be a start, and anyway, what’s wrong with my tonsils?”

I laugh softly. “I mean spells on people are unpredictable. You might get what you ask for, just not in the way you hoped or imagined. Or dreamed.”

“I don’t care. Come on, Charlotte, it’ll be fun.”

“Why Tristan?”

“Are you blind?”

This past summer, like most of the senior boys, Tristan has grown taller, his shoulders broader, his facial features more pronounced, his white skin tanned an even gold. He’s lost that young teen look and gained harder edges, a deeper voice and fuller lips. Everything about him has changed except for his black hair and amber eyes. He’s nothing like the boy who was once my special friend, who promised to love me with his last breath. “Abbie, you don’t know this guy.”

“He’s in all the advanced classes, so I know he’s smart.”

“But you don’t know what makes him push himself so hard to be in those advanced classes. Or what effect having no mother his entire life has had on him.”

“You had no mother your entire life and you turned out okay.”

“Thanks. I think. But seriously, Tristan lived with a father so full of rage and drunk on despair that he would disappear for days. Tristan could be so screwed up inside he’s probably a walking time bomb.”

“Really? How do you know Tristan so well? I’ve been your best friend for the last four years and I haven’t seen him speak to you once in all that time. Not once.”

How do I tell her now, after all these years, that Tristan and I were inseparable from the day we were born until my sixth birthday. And that our families were entwined in ways she couldn’t possibly understand. To this day I don’t even understand. I never told her because, by the time she moved to Emerald Island Tristan wasn’t talking to me and our fathers seemed more like enemies than best friends. Our families were icebergs picking up speed as we floated away in opposite directions on a cold Southern Ocean.

She lowers her voice, “Just do this one thing for me. Please, Charlotte?”

How can I not try when she sounds so desperate?

“It’s just that… Charlotte, I really like Tristan.”

You, and everyone else in our grade. I sigh as I start getting that feeling. How could I have missed it? “I won’t put a second spell on Tristan if this one doesn’t work the way you want, and I won’t put a spell on anyone else you might fancy next.” I pull the phone from my ear before her squeals deafen me.

“I knew you’d come through for me. I’ll be right over.”

“What? Now?”

“Hell yeah. The moon is rising over Diamond Bay as we speak. Look out your balcony door.”

“No need. I believe you. It’s just—”

“Oh. Your Dad. I promise to be super-quiet. He won’t even know I’m there.”

“No, it’s not Dad. He’s not even home yet.”

“Really? Then what’s the problem?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you in ten.”

Tugging on black jeans and a blue jumper, I wait for her text to let me know she’s arrived at my side gate. When the text comes, I unlock the gate remotely from my mobile phone and head downstairs.

She greets me with a hug, her dark red wavy hair tumbling all over my shoulders. “Thanks, Charlotte. I owe you for this.”

On our way up to my room Abbie detours through the kitchen, pulling two bottles of water from the fridge. Last year Dad arranged a Maths tutor for both of us. We had lessons in the upstairs study three mornings a week and Abbie grew comfortable moving around the house.

As she grabs the bottles, I consider the spell we’re going to be making, so I pull the honey from the pantry and bring it with us. She leads the way upstairs, her light brown coat over her jeans flaring out with her quickening steps, her dark brown boots click-clacking on the polished timber floors.

Inside my warm room she tugs off her coat and beanie, pulls her hair up into a ponytail, making her green eyes appear even more sparkling. Grinning with excitement, she hunkers down beside me as I pull my cane basket out from under my bed. Her excitement catching, I lean towards her, bumping her shoulder with mine. She catches my eye, and we giggle.

A few moments later with half my spell-working tools spread across the area between us, Abbie says so softly I strain to hear her, “I have his hair.”

I drop back on my heels. “What did you say?”

Shifting across from me on the white carpet, she takes her time selecting a red candle before finally looking up. “I have a few strands of Tristan’s hair.”

“How did you get them? Oh my God, have you been stalking him?” My gut churns at the thought of how far Abbie has gone, and how much she really must want this. The good mood I was falling into quickly evaporates.

“You know how he surfs every morning, then showers and rinses his board?” She waits for me to acknowledge. I’m aware that Tristan surfs every morning he can, but since I’m not in the habit of watching him shower and rinse his board afterwards, I just shrug my shoulders. “Sometimes there’s hair left behind,” she says.

“In the drain?”

“Not in exactly. Sort of—”

“Swirling around?”

“Yeah.”

“And you know for certain that the hair you gathered is his?”

She nods.

“But if he’s surfing with his friends, how can you be—”

“None of them have hair as black as Tristan’s, so trust me, it’s his.”

“Well, that changes things.”

I fetch inside the basket for a less intense pink candle to replace the red one in her hand.

But she refuses to give the red one up and says, “Hold on a minute.”

I wait, locking eyes with her until she realises I’m not relenting, and finally releases it.

With pursed lips she pulls out my white damask tablecloth, flicking it into a square with a bit more attitude than needed, spreading the fabric across the carpet between us.

“Are you okay, Abbie?”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Her anger is so strong it pulsates off her in waves like the aftershocks of a detonated bomb. But then, unable to stay cross for long and still get what she wants, she nods and smiles. I smile back.

“Charlotte, why are you always so cautious?”

I often ask myself that question, and I shrug.

“My parents would throw a fit if they knew the two of us are alone at your house working a spell.” She giggles, gathering her hair together and tying a loose bun at the top of her head. “I finally got the twins off to sleep, then kissed Mum goodnight as she stared at the television, watching a game show.”

“You’re lucky your bedroom is on the ground floor. Can you fetch my cauldron?” She jumps up and heads to my bookshelf. “Bring the Valerian and Myrrh powder too; they should be in the wooden box behind it.”

Meanwhile, I pull out my box of long matches.

“Hey, so where did your dad go tonight?”

Not knowing how to answer I make myself busy with the cauldron and powders, and she says, “My dad’s out on the rig. Two more shifts and he’ll be home for five days.”

I love the sparkle she gets in her eyes when she mentions her father.

“So, where’s yours?” she persists.

I keep my eyes lowered; she’s good at reading me. “He took a call during dinner and a few minutes later he left, calling out, ‘Don’t wait up.’”

“On the night before school returns for the new year he leaves you by yourself?”

“His job is important.”

“Yeah, but his daughter is too.”

“I’m used to it, Abbie.” When I was twelve, it bothered me even though he would always arrange a sitter. Nowadays, I’ve grown accustomed to the quiet. I can hear myself think. “I don’t mind being on my own.”

“Lucky you,” she says with unmistakeable sarcasm. She clears her throat and waits for me to look at her. “Do you think he’s seeing someone?”

I pull a white candle out. “No. Why? What makes you say that?”

Abbie takes the candle and places it in a crystal holder. “He’s been alone for a long time.”

“But a love like they had doesn’t happen often.”

“So why did she leave him?”

“She didn’t leave him by choice.”

She puts her hand on mine. “Honey, he will always love your Mum, but at the same time he can be with someone else.”

My eyes grow itchy; I rub them with my fingertips. There’s no way Dad is seeing someone. The anniversary of Mum’s disappearance is coming up in a few weeks. It’s always a hard time for him. It must be what Abbie is detecting. I light the white candle with a match, reciting the words:

“Spirit of the air bless this space and those who stand within its light. Keep us safe while seeking your assistance on this perfect night.”

Through the glass balcony door, I glance at the sky to check on the rising moon, but clouds have shifted in.

“What’s wrong, Charlotte? You seem jumpy tonight.”

How do I explain that lately I’m sensing something big is about to happen, big enough to change our lives. But if I tell her it will spoil the positive energy we need to feed this spell so nothing bad happens to us or Tristan. Dad says I’m too superstitious, that my strange dreams and the so-called signs I see are subject to interpretation. That it’s all a part of my overactive imagination. Maybe he’s right.

“I’m fine, Abbie. Are you ready for Advanced Maths this year?”

“Hell yeah. When I see your dad next, remind me to thank him for the tutor.” She glances at me. “It’s the first year we’ll be in the same Maths class as Tristan.”

Abbie runs her fingertips over the top of an assortment of tools spread out along the unused portion of our tablecloth — wax symbols, a hand-carved wand made from driftwood, my grandmother’s silver chalice and my mother’s pentacle necklace, a double star crafted from pewter and embedded with a different coloured crystal at each of the five points. Dad kept these last two items locked in his safe for years, eventually giving them to me so that I had something of my mother’s and grandmother’s to hold in my hands.

He made me promise not to use them for any reason, specifically witchcraft.

Abbie hands me the pentacle necklace. I slip it over my head, in awe as always with the warmth that oozes into my skin as it draws on my energy and gives me some of its own. Abbie cheers as she always does when the pentacle glows. “You have magic in your veins, Charlotte.”

I smile as a shiver of the sweetest kind runs through me. There’s nothing I want more than to be like my mother, to have inherited her abilities. “Thanks, Abbie.”

I take the cauldron in my hand and pour a few drops of lavender oil into it, along with the Valerian, Myrrh powder and three pink rose petals, whispering, “Sorry, Dad,” under my breath.

“For Tristan Bonner to see me and not shy away, to know my eyes are green, and to remember my name.”

I wince; my mouth dry. Quickly, I close my eyes and clear my mind. For this spell to work, I have to rid myself of that cautionary voice telling me to stop. I open my eyes to Abbie’s big grin as she holds out the pink candle. I take the candle and sprinkle it with a few drops of lavender oil, then place it back into the palm of her hand.

She works the oil into the candle, holding it in her left hand because it’s the closest to her heart. I hand her the knotted hair to drop into the cauldron. As she does, I pour in half a teaspoon of honey, offering her the other half. She sucks on the spoon fighting an urge to giggle.

Finally, Abbie lights the candle and places it into the small glass jar alongside the honey and hair in the centre of the cauldron.

The honey gives off a charred smell as it starts to burn and a puff of smoke billows gently towards the ceiling. The candle’s flame also heads upwards from the glass jar. As our eyes follow the smoke, Abbie asks, “How long before the candle burns down, and we can put the lids on?”

“This size candle will burn for an hour, but in sixteen minutes we’re going to put its glass lid on.”

“One minute for every year of my life.”

“That’s it, and once the lid is on, the flame will be out in a few seconds. By then the honey and hair will be out too.”

Her excited squeals at being this close to finishing are interrupted when my balcony’s glass door suddenly slides open with a bang. A blast of cold wind blows in straight off the Bay, chilling us both. But worse, the white candle goes out instantly, while the flames inside the cauldron bend and flicker as if fighting to stay alive. The honey and hair rise, seeming to hover a moment before shooting for the open glass door. I reach for it, but it evades my fingers by lifting out of my reach.

“What on Earth?” I cry out. “Abbie, are you seeing this?”

I turn just in time to the see the candle’s flame flicker and puff out with the last of its smoke lifting to the ceiling.

Giving myself a mental shake, I rush to the door and shut it. “Abbie, did you unlock this door?”

“Why would I do that?”

“No reason. It’s just that I locked that door before you called me. It’s what I always do when I’m about to go to sleep for the night.”

“Maybe you only think you locked it, because clearly you didn’t.” She stares at me with dewy eyes. “You should have just said you didn’t want to cast the spell, not sabotage it when it’s almost finished. That’s poor form, Charlotte. It’s cruel.”

“Abbie, I didn’t sabotage your spell.”

“Can we just re-light the candle and keep—” She stops suddenly, her eyes rolling up to the ceiling. “Charlotte, what’s happening now?”

A ring of glittering lights circles above us. My eyes feel huge as I take in the sight. “What on Earth?”

“Stop it, Charlotte. You know what’s going on.”

“Seriously, Abbie, I didn’t do this. I don’t know what these lights are.” I get up fast, finding myself at eye level with the lights. As if they can see me, they jump backwards; right into the top of Abbie’s raised hair, setting it on fire. Looking around, I grab my rug off the couch and quickly throw it over her head, holding it down while leading her blindly to the bathroom. When I take the rug off, the fire is out, but to be sure, I run the shower, gently moving her head under the stream of cold water.

When I turn it off I hand her a towel. “Are you all right?”

Breathing hard, she dries herself as she walks over to the mirror and takes a look.

“Lean forward.” Ignoring the unpleasant sulphuric smell of her burnt hair, I carefully undo her bun and run my fingers through her long tresses from scalp to tips. “Your scalp’s a little red and some strands are singed, but it’s hardly noticeable.”

Staring at me with narrowed eyes, I quickly tell her, “You know I would never do this to you, Abbie. You know that.”

She finally nods. “Yeah. I know.”

Together, we walk back to the ring of flickering lights still buzzing like a swarm of bees in my bedroom. I lift my right hand and hold it out to the side. As if my hand were a magnet, the lights turn to face it and I whisper, “That’s impossible.”

“What are they made of?”

“They’re producing heat and light; they have to be a form of energy, but the way they turn, as if they can see or sense us, well, Abbie, I have no explanation for that, except…”

“Except what?”

“Someone else on Emerald Island must be able to work magic. They could have sensed our energy and, I’m not sure, but it feels as if they fought back, like they’re trying to stop us.”

“But there’s only you and me who can work magic on Emerald. Maybe we inadvertently created these lights with our own spell?”

I lift my shoulders and let them drop. “I doubt it. Maybe they came in when the door slid open.”

Abbie frowns, observing the flickering lights from different angles. She pulls out her mobile phone and holds it up to take photos. “Don’t, Abbie.” I lift my hand in front of it. “Whether we did this or someone else, do you really want evidence we’ve been practising the craft on Emerald Island to go viral?”

She puts her phone back in her jeans’ pocket. “What now?”

“We figure out how to get rid of them.”

The lights follow us as we move around my room. It’s as if they’re as captivated by us as we are by them. When we stop, they stop too. Abbie goes to the bathroom, closing the door behind her, while I head to the balcony door. They come close to my face again, stopping at eye level. Their glass-like qualities reflect the colours around me. I stare at them, and it’s as if they’re staring back, or someone is seeing me through them. I shiver at the thought.

I get an idea and walk out onto my balcony. As always the salty mist of sea spray calms my heart and fills my lungs with oxygen. And as I hoped the lights follow me. Keeping my mind as blank as possible, I run inside, shutting the glass door behind me.

Abbie comes over and sees the lights twinkling on my balcony and smiles. “Good job.”

Watching them on the other side of the glass is eerie but relieving at the same time. As much as I’d like to, I can’t leave them out there. If conjured by magic, magic will have to get rid of them. But then the lights blink once or twice and disappear.

Abbie grabs my arm. “Excellent.”

But then we hear a buzzing sound begin behind us, and with a sinking sense of dread we slowly turn around.

“Whoa!” Abbie cries out as the lights have not only returned but multiplied to at least a hundred.

Concentrating on figuring out what to do next, I miss seeing Abbie lifting a water bottle into the air until she squeezes the contents at the lights.

Her aim is spot on, and the lights hiss and sputter and explode, releasing smoke into my bedroom. The heat they produce in the process stings our skin and singes our sleeves on contact.

Moving backwards, Abbie stammers, “D-d-did you see that?”

“Abbie, we have to get rid of these things before Dad gets home.”

“How? What do we do?”

“For starters, stop tormenting them.”

“Oh my God, as if I’m doing that on purpose.”

“Would you throw water on an open electric socket?”

“Oh.”

Taking her shoulders in my hands, I turn her around to face my bedroom door. “You need to go home so you don’t get into trouble.”

She spins around. “I’m not going to leave you with this mess. Tell me what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do, but I’ll figure something out.” My mind races to form a plan. In the meantime, the lights move towards each other, resembling a twinkling effervescent cloud that starts sizzling and shooting out sparks.

“Ouch. They’re burning holes in my top.” Abbie reaches for her coat and slips it on. “Come back to my place.”

“I can’t just leave these things. If they keep multiplying they might burn the house down by morning.” I quickly stash my spell-working utensils into my basket and shove them back under my bed. “Abbie, go home before these lights evolve into something dangerous.”

“They already are dangerous,” she says. “Tell me what to do so we can both get some sleep tonight.”

I wouldn’t mind her help, but if something should happen to her, Abbie’s mother would never forgive me. Without her husband at home three weeks out of four, she needs Abbie to help her take care of their boisterous two-year-old twin boys. “The best thing you can do is leave before your mother notices your empty bed and pulls your dad off the rig to help find you. We don’t want your mum ringing my dad and have him come home early from wherever he is tonight.”

“What’s your plan?”

“If these lights are part of a spell we cast, or belong to someone else’s spellcasting tonight, I’m thinking a reversing spell might eradicate them.”

“You’re going to reverse the spell we just put on Tristan?” Her eyes glisten with disappointment. Words dry up in my throat. I swallow to make moisture.

“Abbie, I’m sorry. When the gust of wind put the flames out prematurely, it had already broken the spell.”

“You mean that gust of wind that blew in through the sliding door that you left open?”

“But I didn’t.” Though now I’m filling with doubt. Maybe I did forget to lock the door. “At least not on purpose.”

“No. I suppose you didn’t.”

“Abbie, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. Maybe I should go home.”

Though disappointed, and unsure whether I sabotaged her spell, she still hugs me at the door. “See you tomorrow.”

When I close the door behind her and turn around the lights have formed into a funnel resembling a tornado cloud. Keeping my eyes averted I get down on my knees and reach under my bed for the small chest I keep there with my Spell Book in it. Fumbling, I flick pages as fast as I can.I read out three reversing spells to no avail. Throwing my head back, I scream at the sparkling lights, “Why can’t you just go away?”

As if taunting me, they explode across my ceiling, doubling in numbers again. I watch in horror as they whirl around my bedroom, gathering speed, and thickening the funnel.

“What are you?”

My window drapes go first, shredded by some form of rage and lighting up from the burning touch of the lights. My bedding, cushions, books and every other movable item from my desk rises into the funnel of shimmering and hissing, hostile lights. They spin around only to drop back out in pieces.

I’ve had my problems with spells before, but not like this. Never like this. It’s as if these blinking particles can think for themselves.

My bedroom takes a beating as this uncontrolled energy continues its rampage. When my antique lamp is swept up and falls to the ground in pieces, and a pillow bursts open, spewing feathers over the top of me that instantly set off sparks in the air, I get down on my hands and knees and frantically search for my Spell Book again. Meanwhile, I brush tiny sparks off my shoulders before they catch hold of the fibres in my jumper.

I find my Book half buried under the couch and lunge for it, thumbing through the pages until I locate the words of the reversing spell I favour.

With the Book balancing in my left hand, I hold up my right as I rise to my feet and recite the words in a voice filled with as much conviction as I can gather:

“Mysterious powers of light and flame,

Reverse this spell of ardour made,

Remove all traces from the earth,

In its place send harmony, serenity and warmth,

Restore peace of heart and mind,

By my will, I bid you undo the bind.”

I wait, counting down long seconds, hoping this spell doesn’t use the power of three. I begin to repeat the verse when finally, the lights slow down, the funnel retreats and scatters across the ceiling, where they swell as if gathering their breath for a final assault. Expecting the worst, I brace myself, finding a space between my lounge chairs to crouch between and cover my face, but they simply burst into puffs of smoke and disintegrate.

After all that, they disappear, but not before setting off the fire alarm.

The sound of one of the garage doors opening downstairs lets me know Dad is home.

And here I am hoping this night would finally improve.

Dad’s footsteps are in the entrance foyer. Now on the stairs, he’s jumping two and three at a time.

Shivers.

He barges into my bedroom, swinging the door open with so much force the knob leaves a dent in the wall behind it. He looks around, eyes wide, chest rising and falling as he breathes in fast. “Where’s the fire?” Still peering around, he grabs my shoulders. “Are you all right?” He sees I’m fine and pulls me into his arms. “When I heard the alarm, Charlotte, I didn’t know what to think.” With a deep sigh the tension in his arms ease and he softens his grip. “Hold on a minute, honey.” He reaches into his inside pocket for his mobile phone. He points at the fire alarm in the ceiling and punches in the code to switch it off.

Finally, I can hear myself think again.

For several seconds Dad stands still, his eyes scoping my room and seeing it differently to when he first came charging in not sure what he was going to find. He walks around inspecting my overturned desk with its contents spread over the floor, my bookcase now bare of any items. He bends to pick up the four pieces of my antique lamp and holds them up to me with confused eyes. Placing them carefully on my bed he glances over the flattened pillows and remnants of their stuffing, still drifting from the ceiling.

He stares at me with his dark-blue eyes narrowing in deep thought. He sniffs the air. “Have you been smoking?” His eyes bore into mine. “The truth, Charlotte.”

“No, Dad.”

“What happened here tonight?”

I need time to think, to come up with something logical, something reasonable, something he’ll believe. “This may take a minute, Dad.”

He snaps, “Now, Charlotte, while the truth is the only explanation still in your head.”

But I can’t tell him the truth.

“Charlotte?”

My eyes dart around the room. “Why don’t we sit?” But the debris is everywhere. “Say, in the downstairs living room, or your office?” Out of sight and in his own comfort zone, he might go easier.

“Charlotte, this had better not be witchcraft.”

“Ah…”

Selecting his steps carefully, he makes his away across my room. With one wide sweep of his hand, he clears the mess from one of my lounge chairs but remains standing, staring at something that’s caught his eye on my floor.

My Spell Book.

But then his eyes lift to the pentacle hanging around my neck. Suddenly, as if sensing a threat, it grows hot and burns my skin. Without glancing at it I know it’s glowing. Dad’s eyes nearly tumble out of their sockets at the sight. But he recovers fast, faster than I do. He tugs the chain up and over my head and turns towards the glass sliding door.

I scream, “No! Dad, don’t!” I grab his suit coat with both hands and try to pull him back from stepping out onto my balcony, but he’s too big, too strong. “You can’t do this. Dad, listen to me. Please.”

He slips out of his coat, leaving it in my hands where my tears fall on empty sleeves. Walking outside he draws his arm back and hurls my necklace into the dark waters of Diamond Bay. It’s a long throw, across the road, past a grassed area with trees and a footpath.

Emotions I can’t identify course through my veins. It’s as if a part of my soul went careering into the waters. “That was Mum’s.”

It connected me to her.

“How could you, Dad?”

A flicker of something like regret appears in the long blink of his eyes. They slide to the Bay, and I want to believe he’s thinking he could retrieve the necklace if he jumped in now, before the tide takes it beyond reach. With my luck, all the way to the South Pole.

When he looks at me, he shakes his head. “I’m sorry I had to do that, Charlotte, but I warned you.”

“You didn’t say you’d throw it in the Bay.”

“You should have been more careful with it. I gave it to you in trust.”

We both fall silent. I close my eyes because I can’t look at him. I get that he warned me, but I thought he meant he’d lock it in his safe until I was older, not this. This is too much. What if I never feel the weight of it around my neck again? No, I can’t let that happen. If I don’t get it back — somehow — I’ll never forgive him.

“This…” He points his finger around my room, “is what killed your mother. This thing called magic. Don’t touch it. There are always consequences.”

“What are you saying, Dad? That the craft killed my mother? You told me it was the Bonner’s fault – Tristan and his father.” I look into his eyes, needing to see the truth. “When the chandelier fell from the ceiling at my birthday party and hurt our friends, you said that the Bonner’s blood had dark magic running through it.”

“I never told you that.”

“I was only six, Dad, but I remember every word.” Not that I believed him. I always thought that somehow, I’d brought the chandelier crashing down that day.

He opens out his hands to indicate my trashed room. His voice softening, he asks, “Tell me what happened here. No judgement.”

I take so long to answer; he inhales a sharp breath through his teeth. “Come on, sweetheart. Stop playing games. It’s been a long day.” He glances out through the glass balcony doors. “We could both use some sleep.”

He wants my explanation, and I’ve just run out of time to think one up.

“The truth, Charlotte.”

But the truth is the one explanation I can’t give him.