Page 86 of Witch You Weren't Here

Another thing her gift could be thanked for.

She stood up, but her mum caught her hand before she could move away. ‘What’s going on with you, Kay? You’re acting strange. Is there something I need to know?’ Her eyes darted between Kay and her dad for a moment.

Kay almost said ‘no’. But that wasn’t strictly true. She realised it had never even occurred to her to talk to her mother about the problems she was having with her magic. It had become her – and Joe’s – habit to try to shield their mum from any additional emotional trauma. Her gift to sense what others were feeling was overwhelming. Just seeing the bonds between people had been an onslaught for Kay; she couldn’t imagine feeling their emotions too. But that meant they didn’t lean on their mother for any emotional support. Not since they’d been adults.

Her mother hadn’t been angry with her when Kay’s gift had come in and revealed that her husband didn’t love her anymore. She’d never blamed Kay, but she’d never tried to address it or help them deal with it and move on either. Just because Kay was now ready to try to didn’t mean Tallulah would be and they’d have to talk about it if they wanted to avoid further upset.

‘We’ll talk soon, Mum. Hopefully tomorrow.’ She kissed her on the cheek and shuffled around the guests to reach her dad, doing her best to ignore the spot between her shoulder blades her mum was probably boring a hole into. ‘Dad, would you like to dance?’

He looked at her with that same joy and shock that had infused his expression earlier. ‘I’d love to.’

He finished the last of his drink and led her out onto the dance floor, where he took her hand, putting the other on her waist to hold her in a formal dance pose.

‘So, was this a pity dance for your old man, because I didn’t bring a date?’ he asked, humour in his voice but also an undercurrent of curiosity, as though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her change of heart.

‘I didn’t bring a date either, remember?’ she pointed out, but before he opened his mouth to possibly ask her anything about her love life, she carried on. ‘Have you been seeing anyone recently?’

‘Oh. No. Not for a while. I guess I’m getting to the point where it feels like a bit too much effort.’ The coloured lights from the DJ’s lighting rig caught at the white hairs at his temples.

‘Too much effort? Sounds a little unmotivated of you,’ she teased.

‘If the right person comes along, I’ll be motivated. Finding the person shouldn’t be the bit where you expend all your effort. That’s just the fates. It’s the relationship once you’ve found them that you need to work on.’

Maybe her dad had a secondary affinity she’d not found out about and he was reading her mind a little. Because her problem hadn’t been finding the person. In fact, he’d flown out to Prague and found her.

‘Surely it shouldn’t all be hard work, though. How do you know when you need to stop trying? When you’re trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole? Figuring out if you’re fundamentally different in ways that will always cause problems.’ Like being an influencer with a secondary seer designation and an empath.

He scrunched his nose and gave a small shrug. ‘That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I would say when the salt water is mostly tears of sadness rather than tears of joy. When it’s turned to brine. That’s probably when to stop. It’s hard for most people to realise, I think … especially when there are kids involved.’

She nodded and they grew quiet, a heavy weight between them. Kay reminded herself that it was not all going to be fixed with one dance. They’d been talking about romantic relationships, but the same was true with all of them really. They took work and time.

‘D’you remember when you used to do this, putting your feet on top of mine?’ he asked after a moment.

She smiled. ‘Yeah, I do. Kind of wish I could do that now, to be honest, I’m not much of a dancer.’ Her mind leapt to Harry’s joking with her about his dancing skills. Would he be able to make it downstairs? Or was he still too wiped out from the anchor being activated?

‘Please don’t. Those shoes look like they would do GBH to my toes.’

She laughed and caught her dad looking at her, a tell-tale sheen in his eyes. The bond between them pulsed. Something she’d not seen before. Like the moment had infused it somehow.

The dark and the closeness of all the couples made the colours blur, like she was swimming in marbled ink. It was kind of beautiful really.

The alcohol must be going to her head.

When the song finished, Joe and Sandy came over to them. Her brother’s eyes were lit up, like seeing Kay and their dad together, voluntarily, was the best wedding gift he’d received. But he didn’t say anything. He just caught them up in a hug, and when the next song started up, Kay danced with him, while her dad and Sandy took a turn around the floor.

That dance turned into another with Sandy’s dad, then the best man and all the women from the hen do when a song came on from that alcohol-soaked evening. Kay kept dancing despite her fatigue until hunger drove her to the buffet and she was caught up talking to relatives and Jaz and family friends from Biddicote whom she hadn’t seen in years. She tried not to keep looking for Harry, just like she could almost ignore the shimmering bonds all around her, treating them like they were just an extension of the flashing lights for the disco.

Becca caught up with her eventually, motioning for her to follow her and they headed back down to Mr Ashworth’s study. Kay’s ears rang in the sudden quiet. Someone had put a noise-muffling spell on the function room. Subtle but enough so that anyone not drunk might wonder about it – if the protective magic wasn’t working.

But it was. Because of Harry. And because of her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Becca said as she fiddled in the zipped side patch of one of her camera bags. ‘I didn’t mean to corner you.’

Kay raised her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t you?’

‘Well, OK, maybe I did.’ She grimaced. ‘But you don’t regret it, do you?’

‘No,’ Kay conceded, pulling the glasses frames off her face and holding them out. ‘Do you know what happened?’

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