Page 72 of Witch You Weren't Here

‘So much conflict within you, Kay. Something playing on your mind?’

‘Just whether to take something as a pick-me-up. I’m running on fumes.’

‘Ah.’ Her mum held up one finger and opened a cupboard, pulling out a box of tea. ‘Here we are. Rhodiola rosea and ginseng with our healer’s extra-special boost, to help with fatigue. Let’s make you a cup.’

Kay followed her mother back into the kitchen and watched as she placed an old-fashioned kettle on the hob, clicking her fingers to light the gas. She could have boiled the water in the normal kettle, or with a spell too, but healing teas needed intention and that meant putting effort into the ritual of it. Maybe Kay should have just stuck with another coffee?

‘Don’t be impatient,’ her mother scolded, without Kay saying a word.

Kay tried to picture a calm, happy place in her mind, so her emotions stopped firing off at her mother every second. Birdsong. The sun on her face. The memory of reading in the garden with Harry came can-can dancing into her mind. And that led to the bad dream she’d had on the ferry, which led to what happened after the bad dream, and she definitely didn’t want to be thinking about that when her mother could sense her moods.

‘Are you sure the conflict is just about beverages? I heard about you travelling with Harry Ashworth. That couldn’t have been easy.’

‘No. It wasn’t.’ She could at least admit that. But as soon as she said the words, they tasted like a lie. Some of it had felt very easy, when she’d let it. Laughter, kissing … other things … they’d felt easy. Too easy.

‘Oh, sweetheart.’ Her mum was coming at her with the hugs again. Bollocks.

She accepted it, of course. It wasn’t that she minded her mother giving her a hug obviously, but sometimes she just wanted some time to sit in an emotion without a forensic investigator coming over to pick it apart and dig up the bones of it, like it was a crime scene.

‘This is what I was worried about when I found out. Harry hurt you so much. I’d hate that to happen again. I couldn’t bear feeling you go through something like that again.’

Kay shifted and pulled herself up onto the kitchen stool to get a little space. Guilt pressed at her. She remembered how hard her mother had found it. ‘I’m sorry. My feelings may have been a bit exaggerated by teenage hormones.’

‘You never have to be sorry for what you’re feeling. And just because you were a teenager doesn’t mean your feelings weren’t valid. Emotions forge associations in our minds. The things we feel when we are young are particularly strong and leave impressions that can shape us for years to come – that’s why we have the rules about influencing minors.’ Her mother’s lips pressed together and Kay knew she hadn’t forgotten what Harry had done.

‘It was a mistake. He’s apologised.’

‘Yes, that’s all well and good, but it takes more than “sorry” to fix it. A couple of days travelling together doesn’t cut it, either.’

Kay looked over at the kettle, watching steam escape the spout. When her mother put it like that, her brain could totally acknowledge that two days was no time at all, but it had been the longest weekend of her life – and she wasn’t sure her heart agreed.

Hearts didn’t think, though. That was the problem. They just felt.

‘I would hate for you to go through the pain I did with your father,’ her mother added, like a pestle grinding her point into the mortar of Kay’s psyche. It looked like there was going to be no avoiding this topic, after all.

‘Did something happen with Dad last night?’

‘No, we steered well clear of each other and I took one of my pills, so that kept it manageable. I’ll have to take another soon, especially with all this.’ She ran her hand over her forehead, like Kay’s very presence was giving her a headache.

Maybe it was. If Kay made people more aware of what they were feeling, and her mother was feeling everything Kay was … well, poor woman. The best thing she could think of doing was getting out of the house and getting her emotional state under control before she spent unmedicated time with her mother again.

‘D’you mind if I just go sort my things out while the tea’s brewing? Joe wants me to pick up Sandy and the other bridesmaids in your car, if that’s OK? He said you are going with Aunt Lucille.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course, no problem. Once I’ve made this tea for you, I need to get back to making those phone calls. Almost done. Just ones I couldn’t get through to the first time.’

‘That’s good.’ Kay jumped down from the stool and pushed her hair off her face, making it into a ponytail for a second.

‘Oh, Kay. You’ll make sure you’re sitting in between me and your dad for the ceremony, won’t you?’

Kay paused. ‘I’ll be the last of us to sit down though, won’t I? It would be easier if you just sit next to each other and leave a space for me at the end. So I don’t disrupt things, squeezing through.’

‘It won’t cause that much disruption. I’ll save the space for you.’

‘Why don’t you ask Joe? It’s his day. Wasn’t this the kind of thing you talked about at the rehearsal last night?’

‘We did. But I’m sure he won’t notice. He’ll only have eyes for Sandy.’ Tallulah smiled wistfully. ‘They’re so happy together.’

‘They are.’ She didn’t need her mother’s gift – or her own – to know that.

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