A Witch In Winter Read online

  ‘I’m Anna,’ I whispered back.

  He put out his hand, and I shook it quietly. It was dry and strong and very warm, and I was horribly conscious of my own sticky palm, sweaty from trotting after Mr Brereton. There were callouses on his palm and fingers, and oil deeply grained around the short square nails. I wondered what he did that left his hands so rough.

  ‘I hope you’re good at differentiation, Anna. Because I’m beginning to think I should have taken Applied and Statistics after all.’

  Actually I was good at differentiation, and I’d also already studied the kind of equation Mr Henderson was outlining on the board. Which was a good thing because I was completely unable to concentrate.

  Seth Waters was possibly the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. To say he had curly dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin was all true, but still completely missed the point – he had an indefinable something that made me completely unable to tear my eyes away. I couldn’t stop looking at him sideways as I sat there, pretending to read page one eighty, but in fact watching the muscles of his forearms moving under his tanned skin as he wrote, the string of beads round his throat, the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

  As I looked down at the book I saw there were actual goosebumps on the skin of my arm and I bit my lip, hard, to bring myself back to reality. This was pathetic! Lesson one, and already I was having hot flushes and palpitations. What next, was I going to swoon in English or something? It wasn’t like I’d never met a boy before, for heaven’s sake. OK, I hadn’t had classes with them on a daily basis, but I knew plenty of boys. London wasn’t exactly short of the male sex. But I had to admit, I’d never, never met someone like Seth Waters. Surely, though, there couldn’t be many more like him in the school? If there were I was going to be in serious trouble with my exams, that was for sure.

  It looked like I wouldn’t be the only one. Maybe Seth was right, and he should have taken Applied and Stae plied antistics, because he certainly didn’t act too enthralled by Pure. He day-dreamed through most of the lesson, staring out of the window at the sea sparkling in the distance. At the end of the lesson he scooped up his books and gave me a devastating smile that crinkled the tanned skin of his cheeks.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Hannah.’

  Hannah. Great. I’d clearly made quite an impression.

  The next period was Classics and we were free to choose our places. I was early this time, but still hovered nervously by the door, not wanting a repeat of the hostility with Madeleine if I somehow chose the wrong place. In the end a pink-cheeked girl in a clashing red jumper took pity on me.

  ‘Hi there, you’re Anna aren’t you? I saw you in Maths. Come and sit with me and Liz.’

  ‘I’d love to, thanks.’ I sat down gratefully at her table and said, ‘Sorry, I saw you too but I didn’t get your name?’

  ‘I’m June. And this is my friend, Liz.’ I nodded at Liz and she smiled shyly, hiding her face behind a curtain of blonde hair.

  ‘Thanks for letting me share your table; I was worried about picking the wrong place.’

  ‘Oh, what – after the business with Madeleine?’ June laughed as she got out her books. She was sharper than she looked. ‘Don’t worry about it, Anna. Madeleine’s just one of the thousand and one members of the Seth Waters fan club. Yawn.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Liz said. ‘It’s so boring. It’s like he and Caroline are king and queen of the school.’

  ‘Caroline’s his girlfriend,’ June put in. ‘Thank God we don’t have a prom here or we’d have to put up with them being crowned and all that crap. Although whether Mr Harkaway would allow that, I don’t know. Seth’s not exactly flavour of the month with the authorities …’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. June rolled her eyes.

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual. Drinks, smokes, got a tattoo against the rules. He was suspended a year or two back for getting into a fight and smacking some guy’s head into a wall, but it didn’t seem to do any good. Comes from a broken home, dontcha know. Anyway his reputation doesn’t seem to put any of the airheads off. I expect every school has their official babe-magnet. Was it like that at your last school, Anna?’

  ‘Not exactly. My last school was single sex.’

  ‘Oh how awful!’ Liz looked comically horrified. ‘Poor you!’ Then she blushed, as if fearing she’d been too critical. ‘Though it must be nice too, probably makes life a lot simpler.’

  ‘Yeah, there’d be a lot less bitching arounhertching d if it weren’t for people like Seth,’ June added.

  ‘He seemed OK when I sat next to him,’ I said. Annoyingly unable to remember a person’s name, granted, but not bitchy, I had to give him that.

  ‘It’s not him,’ June said. ‘It’s the effect he has on the female half of the population. Plus Caroline’s a total bitch. Sorry, I really hate that word but she is. She’s always been a prize PITA and since last year, when she started going out with Seth, she’s been unbearable. You’d think he’d conferred divine powers on her. If it’s not snide comments about virgins, it’s bitching about who’s trying to steal him off her, and if it’s not that, it’s how amaaaaaaaaazing he is in bed.’

  She rattled on to her Classics homework without expecting an answer, and I was glad. There didn’t seem a whole lot I could say to that.

  By the end of the morning I was totally exhausted, but also slightly relieved. I was well up with lessons, or so it seemed, so I guessed the hefty school fees Dad had been shelling out for hadn’t been a total waste. I’d made it through so far without disgracing myself academically or, if you discounted my run-in with Madeleine, socially.

  I was dithering by the door of the canteen, trying to decide whether to buy a sandwich in town and save myself the mortification of sitting alone for an hour, when I heard Liz’s voice from behind me.

  ‘Hey, Anna, would you like to sit with us?’

  I nodded gratefully. She and June swept me along to their table in the cafeteria and introduced me to their friends, who all seemed sweet. I answered lots of questions about London, like, ‘Isn’t it majorly, like, dangerous?’ and ‘Isn’t there a massive drugs problem?’ They all seemed quite disappointed to find out that I’d never been mugged, that I didn’t go to a hellish inner-city comprehensive, and that anorexia had been a bigger problem at my school than drugs.

  Only one faux pas spoiled the break, towards the end of lunch. Liz asked if I liked horses. I said an emphatic no, and then noticed the copy of Horse and Hound sticking out of one of her friends’ bags. Oops. Closer questioning revealed that they were all ex-members of the Pony Club and at least three of them owned horses. One of them, a big-boned, solid girl called Prue, had hers stabled up near our house.

  ‘Oooh, you live at the Witch’s House?’ Prue said when I mentioned it. ‘We used to be, like, so scared of that place when we were little! I’d never let Mum drop me off at the main road by the stables after dark; she always had to go right up the track so I didn’t have to walk past the gate.’

  ‘The Witch’s House, is that what you call it?’ I asked.

  ‘I know it’s really called the Wicker House, but no one ever calls it that. It’s always known as the Witch’s House, like the wood is always known as Witch’s Wood.’

  ‘My mum says it should rightly be the Witch’s House anyway,’ Liz said. ‘She said wicker is just a corruption of wicce, which is the Anglo-Saxon word for witch.’

  ‘I told my dad that when he asked me why I wouldn’t walk home alone through the wood.’ June spoke with her mouth full of sandwich. ‘And he says it’s rubbish. He says it’s called Wicker Wood because of the reed beds down by the river.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Prue waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’s bloody spooky after dark, is all I’m saying. I don’t envy you your walk home, Anna.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’m not superstitious.’

  History, after lunch, was fine, but fourth period English I was late again. The room was tucked away above the Che
mistry lab and hard to find. I turned up just as the lesson was about to start and looked desperately around for a free seat. There was only one, next to a serious-looking girl with long dark hair and angular glasses, bent over a copy of Macbeth.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘do you mind if I sit here?’

  ‘If you must,’ she said, in a voice that plainly meant, ‘Please don’t’.

  I looked around but the class was full so I was forced to sit down anyway. I laid my books out, looking at her out of the corner of my eye. She was wearing a skinny grey cardigan with fraying sleeves, and as she read her fingers picked restlessly at the loose threads.

  What could I say? Something about Macbeth? Or would that be too swotty?

  ‘Um,’ I tried, but she ignored my gaze, and I was still trying to think of an opening for conversation when the class started.

  At last the bell rang for the end of the day, and I gathered up my books with a feeling of profound relief that I’d survived the first day. The girl began packing up her bag, her long black hair shielding her face.

  ‘It was nice to meet you,’ I said lamely. ‘What’s your name? Mine’s Anna by the way.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, and shoving her copy of Macbeth roughly in her bag, she walked off without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I lay in the cast-iron bath in the hateful lean-to, trying to ignore the wind whistling through the gaps in the corrugated roof. The water had been steaming when I got in but was already getting cold. Very cold. I pushed at the hot tap with my toe and a thin trickle came out, orange with rust, and dispersed into the murky bathwater. I shuddered.

  I hadn’t felt right since we got to Winter; I was constantly keyed up, ready for something – I wasn’t sure what. I seemed to spend my whole time holding myself in; tiptoeing around Dad, trying not to offend anyone at school, trying to work out the rules in this strange new community. My neck and shoulders hurt with the effort of keeping it all inside – whatever it was.

  Still, at least it was Friday. Only one more day of school to get through. The thought of school made me look at my watch, lying on the toilet seat: time I was getting out. I’d be late at this rate.

  I was just gearing myself up to brave the freezing draught when there was an almighty crash from the living room, followed by an ominous silence.

  ‘Dad?’ I yelled. Then, when he didn’t answer, more panicked, ‘Dad!’

  Then I leapt out of the bath and ran.

  ‘Dad?’ I wrenched open the door of the living room with a wet hand.

  He was standing in his paint-stained overalls with a crowbar in one hand and a clump of paper and a blackened piece of oak about six inches thick in the other.

  ‘What the hell!’ Relief made me annoyed. ‘Why didn’t you answer when I shouted? And why on earth are you doing DIY at eight a.m.?’

  ‘Sorry, sweetie,’ he said mildly. ‘I didn’t hear you.’ He held out the charred papers with a nod. ‘I got that bread oven open – although, bloody hell, it was a struggle. Look how thick the door was! I was right, it was an oven, and I found this hidden in there – it looks like some kind of book. Could you stick it in the kitchen until I’m cleaned up?’

  ‘Sure.’ I took it gingerly by one edge. It was three-quarters burnt, covered in cobwebs, and slightly paint-spattered where Dad had touched it. Part of the cover was visible and I made out the words:

  … e Hroc

  Grimoire

  What the hell was a Grimoire? Or a Hroc for that matter? It looked like an old recipe book but I wasn’t about to start leafing through – Dad was the one with an interest in this place. Let him get his hands dirty. I stuck it on the window sill and began making myself a cup of coffee. The plug sparked as I flicked on the percolator and made me jump. God, I hated this house. You couldn’t even make a cup of coffee without risking your life. The sooner Dad got this place rewired, the better.

  Dad came through just as it finished percolating.

  ‘Oh good, is there enough for me?’

  I poured him out a cup and as he drank it he said, ‘Did I tell you I need to go up to London tomorrow?’

  A trip back to Notting Hill! Lauren – Suzie – all my old friends … I almost held my breath, but managed to stammer out, ‘N-no, why?’

  ‘I’ve got to get my crown refitted and we’re not registered with a dentist down here yet. I thought I’d stay with James and Lorna while I’m up.’

  Oh. James and Lorna were Dad’s friends from way back; they had a one-bedroom flat in Bloomsbury. Dad would be sleeping on their sofa, and there’d be no room for me.

  ‘Will you be all right while I’m gone?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, trying to fight back disappointment.

  ‘Honestly? Because this place can be pretty spooky at night, I know. I wondered if you’d like to invite some of your new friends over to stay, to keep you company.’

  I suppressed the urge to snap that I didn’t have any new friends and tried to keep a convincing smile on my face.

  ‘I’ll be fine, honestly. Don’t worry, Dad. Have a good time.’ Then I looked at my watch. ‘Oh hell. I’ve got to run.’

  8.44. I’d covered barely a third of the walk to school. It was starting to rain – oh, and I had a stone in my shoe. Could this morning get any better?

  I knelt by the roadside and pulled off my shoe, scrabbling inside to try to find the damn stone. From far off came the roar of an engine, faint above the crashing waves. I was too busy lacing my shoe to look up, until a battered truck swept past, far too fast, its wheel clipping my school bag and sending it flying. Books flew up in the air and papers and pens rained down like bomb debris.

  ‘You arse!’ I screamed at the driver. ‘You’re driving like a maniac!’

  I’d assumed he wouldn’t hear over the roar of the engine but there was a squeal of brakes and the truck ground to a halt. The driver’s door opened and I gulped – preparing for a road rage attack.

  It was Seth Waters. He ran over, his face pale.

  ‘Anna, I’m so, so sorry.’

  Huh. Well at least he got my name right this time. I resisted the urge to say, ‘It’s fine, honestly, Sam,’ and concentrated on picking up my belongings.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he repeated, kneeling beside me in the dust to gather up pens and sheets of A4. ‘I didn’t see you in the long grass. I didn’t expect anyone along here – no one walks this way at this time of day. Not that that’s an excuse.’

  ‘We’ve just moved into the Witch’s House. I mean, Wicker House,’ I said crossly. ‘So I’ll be walking this way regularly from now on. It’d be nice if you could try not to run me over in future.’

  ‘Let me give you a lift the rest of the way.’

  ‘No thanks.’ I was still shaking from the near miss, and too cross to trust myself to be polite on the journey.

  ‘Hey.’ He took my shoulder and turned me to look at him. His face was full of remorse. ‘I really am so, so sorry. Please, won’t you let me give you a lift at least, to save you the walk?’

  His eyes were pleading; I felt myself soften. The part of me that was still cross wanted to retort, ‘What and risk my life all over again?’ but instead I just shrugged. Caroline’s icy countenance floated into my head.

  ‘Please?’ Seth held out my bag and the sheaf of crumpled homework pages. ‘I promise I’ll keep to the speed limit …’ The warmth of his smile and his wheedling tone was impossible to resist. I reluctantly cracked a smile back. ‘Go on, you know you want to. You’re late anyway.’

  ‘If you’re sure—’ I was going to say, ‘If you’re sure your girlfriend won’t mind’, but it suddenly sounded weird, presumptuous. I stopped, floundering.

  ‘Course I’m sure! It’s the least I can do after running over your bag. Come on, jump in.’

  I nodded and climbed in, and Seth started the engine again with a roar.

  ‘Sorry,’ he called over the noise of the engine. ‘It makes a bit of a racket I know. I inhe
rited it off my dad; he was a plumber.’

  ‘What does he do now?’ I shouted back.

  Seth gave a funny little apologetic smile and a shrug.

  ‘Oh, well, he died. Pancreatic cancer.’

  ‘Oh!’ I flushed scarlet. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Was it recent?’

  ‘Four years ago this summer. Don’t worry, you weren’t to know. Anyway, it’s nice to talk about him. No one does any more.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Great. I really miss him.’

  We drove in silence for a bit, then Seth said, ‘So what does your dad do?’

  ‘Oh, he used to be a stockbroker. But he lost his job. That was why we had to move.’ My face felt stiff with the effort of trying to say the words casually. Memorhe ually. ies flashed into my head unbidden: Dad stumbling home from work, his face white and drawn; piles of red demands on the hall table; the thump, thump of a hammer as they nailed up the ‘sold’ sign outside our house.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ He glanced at me with his intensely dark eyes. They seemed full of concern though I couldn’t imagine why he’d give a toss about my dad’s job. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He was made redundant and … well … he had a kind of breakdown,’ I said reluctantly. ‘So this is sort of a new start for him. For both of us.’

  ‘What’s he doing now?’

  ‘Nothing. Just doing up our house. Well, he’s got some random idea about writing a book about the history of fishing on the south coast, but I can’t see that happening any time soon.’ I tried for a laugh.

  ‘Sounds interesting,’ Seth said. I looked at him sharply to see if he was being sarcastic, but he seemed to be serious. ‘What does your mum do?’

  ‘My mum’s …’ I hated this moment. ‘Well, dead too, I guess.’

  ‘Now I’m sorry again. Especially as I seem to have put my foot in it twice, with your dad’s job and all.’

  ‘No, it’s really OK,’ I tried to explain, not wanting to feel like a fake. ‘It’s not like your dad. I never knew her. She – oh God, it’s all so difficult to explain.’