The Graces Read online

  There were three others, and when I saw who one of them was my heart dropped. It was Niral.

  What was she doing here? She didn’t hang out with Summer. Was she trying to get to Fenrin? Our last meeting came back to me in full Technicolor glory.

  There’s the copse at the back of the field. Nice and secluded.

  Summer sat in a gap in the circle, and Gemma obligingly wiggled sideways to make room for me. I watched Summer clap her hands together once, in a weirdly formal gesture. The others stopped talking and looked up at her expectantly. I could feel their eyes flickering over me. I knew what their eyes meant. I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  ‘Did you bring what I asked?’ said Summer.

  Each girl started rummaging in pockets or bags at their feet. Lou took out a black velvet cloth and spread it out on the ground, smoothing it down. Onto the cloth each girl placed an item. Red tea-light candles. A deep, crimson-coloured cooking pot. Little glass herb bottles from the supermarket. Scissors.

  Niral burst out laughing, pointing at the cooking pot. ‘What is that?’

  Another girl flushed. I always confused her with at least two other girls in our year because they had the exact same long blonde hair and wore similar clothes. ‘She said bring a red container, so I did!’

  ‘You make, like, stew in that, you dope.’

  ‘It’s exactly what we need,’ Summer said, with an unusual calm to her voice. ‘Did you all bring an item?’

  No one moved. I hadn’t brought anything, but then I hadn’t exactly had any notice.

  ‘I take it that’s a yes. Don’t worry, we’ll all have our eyes closed when you drop it in the pot. No one else will see it.’

  Summer took out a book of matches and lit each tea light, placing them in a rough circle around the red pot. She then took up a glass bottle – basil, I caught on the side of it – and sprinkled the contents around the pot, letting them flutter down onto the tea lights, which sputtered and burned the dried herbs, giving off a wispy smell.

  I should have been happy. This was it – the confirmation I’d needed that the rumours about the Graces were true.

  It was just that I’d thought this kind of thing was done with a bit more … style.

  Supermarket herbs and red tea lights?

  ‘Summer,’ I muttered. Everyone was watching her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, in the same calm voice. She was starting to unnerve me, and I wasn’t the only one. The world had gone strangely quiet. There were only the sure movements of Summer and the coiled silence of the group.

  ‘I don’t have an item,’ I said.

  She straightened, raising her voice for the rest of the circle.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. The item is significant to you, but it’s just a channel.’ She shrugged. ‘If you’re powerful enough, you don’t need any kind of item at all. Or even any candles, or any of this. You do it by will alone. But I don’t think we’re quite there yet.’

  One or two of the girls snickered nervously.

  ‘This is how it will go,’ said Summer, and no one doubted her one bit right then. ‘We will start the chant. The chant raises energy inside each of us. We’ll do it with our eyes closed. We’ll do it until enough energy has been raised. If it takes an hour, it takes an hour.’

  ‘But lunch is over in, like, twenty minutes,’ said someone.

  ‘Why do you care? What’s more important: this or some class? You guys asked me to do this. You badgered me for weeks. So now we get to it, you’re all running scared?’

  The circle was silent.

  ‘This is only going to work if you put everything you have, everything you are, into it.’ Summer sat back on her haunches. ‘No holding back. No thinking about other things. This is magic, and it’s hard. If you break concentration, you lose energy. Lose energy and the spell won’t work. You’ve got to be here, with me, right now, for as long as I need you. As long as it takes. Are you in or are you out?’

  I felt a knotted thrill blossom deep inside my guts. I was wrong. This was real. She was the real deal.

  ‘Commit,’ Summer stated in a cold voice. ‘Each of you say, “I’m in all the way. I’ll give everything I have.” Say it now. Lou.’

  Lou replied without hesitation, her voice eager. I’d have felt embarrassed for her if I didn’t also feel the way she sounded. ‘I’m in all the way. I’ll give everything I have.’

  Summer made each of us say it. A couple stumbled, awkward. When it came to me, I wondered at how steady and clear my voice was. It’s surprising what you can get yourself to do when you want something badly enough.

  ‘The chant is this,’ she said. ‘Bring them to me. Make them see.’ She paused. ‘Substitute him for them. Or her.’ She flashed a wicked smile, the first I’d seen since we’d reached the copse.

  Niral snorted, nervous and irritable. ‘It’s just a rhyme. How’s that a spell?’

  ‘Words have power. But the words are meaningless without your intent behind them, driving them. The rhyming is just to help even idiots remember what to say. Now shut up and join in, or leave. If you bring doubt, you wreck it for the rest of us.’

  A couple of the others threw Niral irritated looks. I dared to join in, and Niral saw it.

  ‘I’m not bringing doubt,’ she said, narrowing her eyes at me. ‘I’m in.’

  ‘Then let’s start. Close your eyes.’

  I watched them all do it. Then I closed mine.

  Instantly, I felt vulnerable and embarrassed.

  This was stupid. This was really stupid. What if a teacher came?

  ‘Bring him to me. Make him see,’ said Summer, her voice soft. ‘Bring him to me. Make him see.’

  No one joined in at first. I felt like laughing. I swallowed it.

  ‘Bring him to me. Make him see,’ I said, my voice mismatching hers. But I kept on until we were in time with each other. More voices joined in. Muttering, stumbling at first. But the more we said it, the less it made sense, and the more we fell into each other’s sounds, like a flock of birds turning together.

  I don’t know how long we chanted. I don’t honestly know. It could have been forever. I never lost it, like a dream where time has lost all meaning because you no longer feel it, and it just kept rippling out from us, bring him to me, make him see, and I started to drown in the rhythm because there was nothing else.

  ‘Lou,’ Summer said. ‘Open your eyes and put your object into the pot. The rest of you, don’t you dare stop chanting.’

  It registered, barely. I heard a little clink. I couldn’t have stopped chanting. My voice was being pulled out of me.

  Summer said something in a low voice. Rustling.

  I didn’t stop. None of us stopped. Whispering sounds, rolling around me, again and again.

  ‘Lou, close your eyes, keep chanting. Gemma, open your eyes and put your object into the pot.’

  Summer went round the circle. It seemed to take years to get to me. I was the last.

  ‘Open your eyes,’ she breathed into my ear.

  I did, but it was hard, like they were stuck together with honey. I blinked and looked around. Somehow, I expected it to be dark.

  ‘Cut a piece of your hair,’ Summer said, and offered me the scissors. She held something tightly in her other hand, and I couldn’t see what it was. ‘Put the hair into the pot. As you do, visualise the one you want. Visualise them right in front of you, as if you could lean forward and kiss them. Don’t let go of their face.’

  I took the scissors. My muscles were liquid. My head was buzzing with the noise of the chant. I cut a long strand and held it up between my fingers. I looked beyond it, and I saw his face. His antique gold hair flopping down, brushing his cheekbones. His grin. His eyes on mine.

  I leaned forward and put my hair into the pot.

  Fenrin, I thought, as my lips kept moving.

  Rustling, the sound of footsteps.

  And then a sharp, angry, ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’

  Our chan
ting faltered, stumbled, and we fell over the broken words. The velvet cloth was embarrassing. The pot was ludicrous. Niral had been right – the herb bottles made it seem like we were making a stew. I looked up, cheeks blooming.

  It was Thalia. Spring wet was still in the air; she was wearing brown leather boots and a long-sleeved beaded top that draped over her skin in all the right places. Her hair was knotted high on her head in a floppy bun, the ends trailing down her neck.

  My relief that it wasn’t a teacher was short-lived, because Thalia looked furious.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded, scanning the group.

  ‘I’d have thought that it’s pretty obvious,’ Summer said coolly.

  ‘Clean this stuff up and get back into school.’

  Summer didn’t move. The rest of us were caught, squirming.

  ‘You’re such a drama queen, Thalia,’ said Summer finally. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’

  ‘That’s not what you said earlier,’ Niral interjected, her voice hot with embarrassment. ‘You said we had to put everything we had into it!’

  I raised my eyes heavenward at the mistake. God, don’t do that. Don’t try and make Summer look stupid in front of her sister. Thalia won’t like you for it, and then you’ll lose Summer, too.

  Thalia’s toffee-coloured eyes narrowed at Niral. ‘Get back into school,’ she repeated. ‘I’m sure you’re missing a class. Go now or I’ll report you. Go on, all of you.’

  Summer still hadn’t moved. Unsure, cheeks burning, the other girls started to get up, dust their coats off and leave the copse. No one dared take the pot or anything else.

  I stayed where I was. If this was a test, I would pass with flying colours. The answer was too easy: loyalty. They had all failed it, but I would not.

  Thalia was peering into the pot and wrinkling her nose. ‘Did you know you could hear it all the way back to the hard courts? You’re lucky it was me who caught you. Fen would have popped a vein.’

  At the mention of his name, my heart sped up.

  Summer scoffed. ‘He doesn’t care what I get up to.’

  ‘Please. He hates this stuff, you know that,’ Thalia snapped.

  ‘That’s his problem. Not ours.’

  Thalia sighed, hackles lowering. ‘Look, I know. But still.’ She shifted her gaze away from the pot. ‘And it’s not just Fen who’d lose his rag, is it? If Esther ever finds out, she’ll go completely insane.’

  It took a second to work out who she meant by Esther, but then I remembered that it was their mother. Did they always call her by her first name? That was strange.

  ‘So don’t tell her,’ Summer said.

  ‘So don’t do it.’

  ‘This whole town knows about us, Thalia.’

  Thalia half turned, looking distracted. ‘I’m not having this conversation yet again. Take this crap with you when you leave. Teachers will ask questions, and then we’ll all be in a world of pain.’

  She whirled off.

  When she had disappeared from sight, Summer let out a breath. She seemed a little twitchy. I hadn’t noticed it when Thalia was there; she was good at hiding it.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I said carefully, expecting her to snap at me.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Will Thalia tell on you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How do you know? She didn’t say she wouldn’t.’

  ‘If I’d asked her not to, she’d have done it out of spite. This way she thinks I don’t care about it, so she won’t bother.’

  Summer’s other hand uncurled as she talked, and I risked a quick look at the object she’d been clutching this whole time. It was a figurine, made of polished stone, streaked with swirling orange-brown colours and shaped like a bird. The light caught on the deeply carved ridges of its wings. I stared at it surreptitiously, wondering what it meant.

  ‘So the rumours are true.’ I tried a teasing tone. ‘You really are witches.’

  ‘Is that why you came along today?’

  I tried to think of the right thing to say. ‘I guess I was curious. How come you asked me along?’

  ‘Same reason.’ She gave me a playful smile and then looked off into the trees. I felt safe enough to push just a little more.

  ‘Why doesn’t your family like people to know?’

  ‘Well, let’s just say they really enjoy having their little secrets. I’m the only one who’s upfront about it. Why hide? Esther makes her living from it, after all.’

  Their mother, Esther Grace, ran a health and beauty shop in town, all natural and organic products. Tinctures for headaches, salves made of plants I’d never heard of, face masks that smelled like earth and rainwater. Some of her creations got sold at the higher-end pharmacies and department stores in the city.

  ‘You’re telling me her face cream is magical?’ I said dubiously.

  Summer laughed. ‘The price tag might make you think so.’ She got up from the ground, brushing off her slim flanks. ‘Come on. I’d better give Emily her pot back.’

  I didn’t move. ‘We haven’t finished the spell. I mean, it doesn’t look like we have.’

  Summer regarded me. I tried not to squirm. I had no idea what she was thinking.

  ‘Nope,’ she said, after a moment. ‘Want to?’

  I said nothing. She dropped back to her knees and picked up the matchbook, striking one.

  ‘Don’t we need the chanting?’

  ‘A lot of energy still here,’ said Summer. ‘Especially with Thalia’s little outburst. Might still work.’

  She dropped the lit match into the pot. I didn’t look. Only she knew the objects they had all thrown in. The smell of burning hair crept past us. I stared hard at the ground, pouring myself into the moment, conjuring his face as it all went up in flames.

  I didn’t care if it was wrong. I couldn’t afford to, if I wanted to make him mine.

  CHAPTER 5

  Two weeks ago, I started my own Book of Shadows.

  Since I’d found out about the Graces, I’d been reading up on witchcraft. According to my research, a Book of Shadows was a diary that witches kept all their spells and knowledge and observations in, building it up into a kind of working manual. I carefully wrote down ideas from books by authors with names like Elisia Storm, books I bought with money saved up from an old weekend job I’d had doing the dishes in a dime-a-dozen burger restaurant.

  I’d never owned books like these before. The only kind of magic I’d ever read about was the ‘hurling fire bolts’ kind in fantasy books. The only kind of friends I’d ever had would have thought there was something wrong with me if I’d talked about witchcraft with them. I didn’t even know there were people who had conversations about it as if it might actually exist.

  I was usually cautious with money, but I wanted those books so desperately. I needed them. I knew they weren’t going to solve all my problems at once – I mean, if it were as easy as reading about it, everyone would be doing it – but maybe they could help. The rest would be up to me. That was where the Graces came in.

  I didn’t want my mother to know about the books, but it didn’t matter in the end because she found them anyway. I knew she had – I’d put a circle of salt as protection round the box I kept them in under my bed. Last week, when I got home from school, a section of the circle was broken and scuffed, and they were stacked in a different order to how I’d left them.

  My parents had always acted overly twitchy towards anything remotely abnormal, so it was ironic that they had birthed a kid who craved the strange like other people craved drugs. The moment I saw that my mother had been in my box, my stomach churned and turned over, and I waited for her to come storming up to me, demanding to know just what the hell I thought I was doing, just where had I got the money from, just how did I think being like this was going to sort out my life?

  She had to know why I had those books.

  She had to know that it was to try and bring Dad back.

  To try to fix things.

  But she
hadn’t said a word. She hadn’t mentioned it to me once so far.

  ‘I’m the best mother anyone could ask for,’ she liked to announce decisively nowadays. ‘I let you do whatever you want. I let you be independent. Anyone else would love to have me as their mum.’

  She was right. And she was wrong. If I were on fire, would she douse me with water or push past me and go down to the pub instead, leaving me to burn to the ground? Sometimes you need boundaries. Boundaries tell you that you’re loved.

  CHAPTER 6

  We passed notes to each other in class, chatted in breaks, and she grinned at me in the corridors, but Summer hadn’t yet asked me to sit with her at lunch. Every day I hoped for it, but part of me dreaded it, too. I still hadn’t found a weekend job, so I could never afford to eat in the cafeteria. We lived in different worlds – the food I brought in would be a window into mine that I didn’t want her looking through.

  In form room one morning, a neatly folded note landed on my desk. We could use mobiles until the first class, but the Graces, unbelievably, didn’t even own phones.

  The paper had that off-white, rough, recycled thickness to it that made me feel more special just touching it. I wished I could buy some, in a beautifully bound notebook, and write my Book of Shadows on that paper, but I had to make do with a set of lined ones with shiny black covers from the pound shop.

  I opened up the note.

  Is it working yet? any tingles? – S

  She meant the spell. And no. But then again, I hadn’t even seen Fenrin since we’d done it. I had been half hoping he’d come over to me the next day, mumbling something about not being able to help himself, he just had to know if I was free that evening. But that only happened in films. I was glad it hadn’t happened that way. It would have felt fake, and I wanted real – so real it was painful.

  I got out my thin purple nib pen, the one that made my writing look delicate and creatively loopy, and scribbled back.