The Witch’s Tears. Katharine Corr
‘whereas you …’ Ruby shook her head sadly.
‘Huh. You’re just lucky, inheriting your mum’s skin colour.’ Merry grinned, ‘Not to mention her dress sense …’
‘Take that back,’ Ruby scowled. ‘Right now.’
‘Yeah, yeah, all right.’ Merry pulled her sandwich out of her bag. ‘But while we’re on the subject, why don’t you tell Flo about your plans to take over the fashion world?’
‘Oooh, yes, please!’ Flo clapped her hands together and sat forward.
‘OK.’ Ruby put on her newly acquired, almost-designer sunglasses. ‘Well, people are always telling me I look good. Always asking me what I’m wearing. Aren’t they, Merry?’
Merry nodded.
‘So, I’ve been thinking I could become one of those online fashion/make-up/hair-care gurus. Only, like, much better than the other girls who are already doing it. So I started a fashion vlog. Last weekend.’
‘Fab, I’ll google you. Sounds like it’s going to be epic!’
Ruby laughed, and she and Flo began discussing the various crimes against fashion that were currently being committed around them in the park.
Merry took a bite out of her sandwich. It was such a long time since she’d had a day like this. Looking around, she could see dozens of other people hanging out among the trees, sunbathing or chatting or listening to music. And apart from Flo, none of them knew she was a witch. It almost made her feel normal.
Almost.
‘Hey! Are you still with us?’ Ruby was waving a hand in front of Merry’s face. ‘I said, do you know yet what you want to do next year? After we leave?’
Merry shrugged.
‘Dunno. Something to do with sports, maybe.’ Perhaps she could really work on her fencing, even take it up professionally. Jack would have approved of that.
‘PE lessons –’ Flo interjected, ‘one thing I’m definitely not going to miss.’
‘Me neither,’ Ruby replied. ‘Can’t wait for the day I no longer have to waste an hour a week being bored on a netball court. But seriously, Merry, what are you going to do?’ She sat forward, closer to Merry, pushing her sunglasses back on her head. ‘I know the spring term was hard for you.’ Ruby glanced at Flo. ‘Has she told you about what happened?’ Flo nodded, her face carefully neutral, and Ruby continued. ‘But you seem better now. Right?’
‘Better?’ Merry wasn’t sure what to say. Ruby was still smiling, but there was something in the way she was looking at her – searching her face – that made Merry want to look away. She’d so wanted to tell Ruby the real reason for her weird behaviour the previous few months, for missing classes and messing up at school, for never being around when Ruby needed her. She wanted to tell her the truth about Jack and Gwydion and the curse, about being a witch and all that it meant. Apart from Leo, Ruby was her best friend in the entire world: it would be amazing to let Ruby see her for what she really was. But Merry didn’t know how to begin. Perhaps she and Flo should just … show Ruby their powers. Turn the parched turf in front of them into a bed of multicoloured daisies.
Ruby tugged at the shrivelled blades of grass.
‘I just mean, that since that guy left, you seem more yourself again.’
Jack. Even here, Merry couldn’t get away from him. Not that she wanted to. Thinking about him, talking about him – even if she never used his name out loud – it kept a little bit of him alive. Somehow.
‘Um …’ Merry’s throat was dry; she took a sip from her bottle of water. Ruby tilted her head, her curiosity nudging at Merry insistently. ‘Well … Yeah. I guess. I mean, it would never have worked.’ She knew Ruby was about to ask why, so she rushed the words out. ‘I think he was still in love with someone else. Someone from his past.’ With Meredith. My ancestor from fifteen hundred years before I was born. Two witches from the same family, in love with the same boy.
‘Really? What a loser,’ Ruby commented, satisfied. ‘I’d want to seriously injure anyone who messed me about like that. Hope you dumped him from a great height.’
Merry stared at her friend.
You have no idea what he meant to me. And no idea what we had to do to him—
She caught her breath and shrugged, trying to look unconcerned even as her heart ached. ‘It was months ago. I’m fine with it now.’
There was a surge of sympathy from Flo; she knew a little of the truth about Jack, about how Merry had felt about him. But Merry could tell Ruby didn’t believe her. Not one little bit. A hint of panic began to swirl in the pit of her stomach.
Ruby nodded.
‘Good. So you can begin dating again. Prove to him that you’ve moved on. And I know exactly the guy for you – he’s completely lush.’
Ruby started swiping through the photos on her phone, looking for a shot of Mr Lush, talking about how amazing he was. But Merry couldn’t take any of it in. How could she move on from a boy she’d been so desperate to save that she’d been willing to let him die? It felt impossible.
Guilt mingled with the panic.
I really wish I hadn’t told Leo last night that he needed to move on.
It was time to change the subject. But her mind was blank.
Luckily, Flo came to the rescue.
‘Ooh – speaking of lush, I spent most of last weekend binge-watching Poldark. Have you seen it, Ruby? Aidan Turner is so hot.’
Merry’s hands unclenched as Ruby and Flo began a long discussion on whether people really used to work down mines with no shirts on. For now, at least, she was off the hook.
A few hours later they were on the train back home. Flo started texting a guy she’d met at a party a couple of weeks ago, while Ruby put her headphones on and seemed to fall asleep. Merry’s phone had died, so she looked around for something to read and located a discarded newspaper a few seats down.
The headlines seemed to be the usual mix of regular news, human-interest items and celebrity gossip. A politician had been caught doing something dodgy, some poor guy had been murdered for his collection of antique knives, and yet another Hollywood couple had split up. Nothing interesting enough to make her read the rest of the article. Until a picture of a woman caught her eye. The woman looked like she was in her early thirties, and she was going for a seventies hippy vibe: multicoloured peasant blouse, flared jeans, fringed suede bag. She was smiling flirtatiously over her shoulder. For some reason, her face seemed familiar, though Merry was certain that she didn’t know her. She looked at the headline next to the photo:
Birchover death: police believe Ellie Mills’s body lay undetected for days
Merry read a bit more of the story and grimaced. Ellie Mills. The name didn’t ring any bells. And where could she possibly have seen her before? After a while she gave up trying to figure it out and stared through the window instead. She watched the landscape streaking past, until her eyelids grew heavy.
MERRY WASN’T SURPRISED to be back at the lake again. Somehow, it seemed … inevitable. Whatever path she chose, she kept ending up in the same place. But today it looked different. The water wasn’t sparkling, or reflecting the cloudless sky above. Instead, the lake lurked within its hollow: shrunken, dark, stinking of rotten vegetation. As she got closer to the edge, she saw that it