Page 21 of Witch You Weren't Here

It was highly unlikely the sofa bed had broken all by itself. She probably was a little – or totally – responsible, and she couldn’t help the way the thought pricked at her conscience.

The words dragged up from the very soles of her feet. ‘You can’t sleep there now, can you.’ She cleared her throat and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Come on. You can share the bed.’

He looked up. ‘No. It’ll be fine—’

‘Harry. Just get in the damn bed before I change my mind, OK?’

She turned on her heel, climbed into the bed and kept herself as far over on the mattress as she could without falling out, ignoring the way her heart was pounding.

She didn’t want this. She didn’t. But as annoying a human being and witch as he was, she also couldn’t leave him to be turned into Swiss cheese by a piece of furniture her misfit magic had trashed. Especially when he was only sleeping there because he’d given up the bed to her.

The light in the living room went out and she took her glasses off, putting them on the bedside cabinet and squeezing her eyes shut, as she heard him move quietly into the room. The bed dipped and he slid in on the other side.

She bit her lip hard, willing herself not to be so aware of him. When she’d braved the bed earlier, she had been reassured that what he’d told her was true, he’d been the only one to sleep in the sheets since they’d been put on the bed. The faintest hint of his sweetly spicy aftershave lingering on the cotton. But now he was actually in the bed, she could smell his skin beneath the cinnamon scent, along with his toothpaste, and the linen-fresh fabric softener his clothes had been washed in. Then there was the actual length of his body too, settling next to her. His head on the pillow beside hers. His legs stretching down past hers in the bed. And his heat. The bed had turned cold while she was out of it and it made the warmth radiating off him all the more obvious.

‘Thank you,’ he said again quietly, and it was too intimate now that they were in bed together. ‘Goodnight, Kay.’

She made a non-committal noise, because there was no way this was going to be a ‘good night’.

Chapter Five

ten years earlier

The village of Biddicote, Surrey, England

Biddicote was uncannily pretty. The ‘uncanny’ bit being down to the fact that the large population of witches living there used their various special gifts to help them maintain the old buildings and keep their gardens flourishing. Whether it was Mr Ashworth ensuring the local authority awarded Grade II listed status to the quaint shops in the market square, or Jaz’s mum making sure every flower bloomed (for a small fee, naturally – witches had to make a living too), it all helped to keep the village picture-postcard perfect.

At that moment, though, Kay couldn’t have cared less whether the thatched Tudor cottages leaned at the most aesthetically pleasing angle beside the country lanes, their window boxes full of bright flowers, petals glistening from being freshly watered. It barely registered that the pond on the green reflected the clear blue skies, broken only by the ripples of the ducks, swimming towards the pristinely painted white bench where a mother and child waited with the offer of birdseed. She had much better things to bother her head with.

The weather was of slightly more interest, since the late June temperature had allowed her to pair the bright pink Converse high tops she’d received for Christmas with her favourite summer dress. It swung about her legs, just over the knee, and had a bodice which made the most of the chest she was secretly hoping would develop a little more over the next few months, or years at least.

Even that barely mattered, though, because she was going to meet Harry. Going on a date with Harry.

The two months since she’d last seen him had been the longest of her life, and not just because of how much she’d missed seeing him. So much had happened in that time, and even though they’d texted each other frequently, him offering her words of support and consolation in the face of her parents’ sudden divorce, it hadn’t been the same as speaking to him in person.

Once both their exams were over, she’d finally screwed up her courage and sent him the text she’d been drafting in her mind ever since Beltane.

Kay: Would you’d like to go out sometime? Just me and you? I’ve missed you. We don’t have to tell Joe if you think he’ll be weird about it. He’s still not really talking to me anyway.

After her initial burst of bravery, doubt had crept in. He’d always answered her really quickly before, but as time crept on and a week had passed, she’d worried that she’d read his feelings all wrong. Then, finally, he’d replied.

Harry: I’ve missed you too. Meet me at the cave on Saturday? 7 p.m.?

He’d missed her too! And he wanted to meet up! It was the best thing to happen to her in months. A patch of bright blue in a relentlessly grey sky. Just like his eyes.

Her stomach flipped at the thought of going down to the cave again, her mind straying to the memory she’d replayed over and over again. His fingers playing with her hair. Him leaning in towards her. She was so sure he was going to kiss her last time, and now they were going on an official date, how much more likely was it to happen? She wondered how his mouth would feel on hers. It looked so soft. Harry Ashworth’s lips were the kind of pretty it was worth thinking about.

Slipping down the alleyway behind the old post office, she walked until she came to the stile which broke up the hedgerow. She climbed over nimbly enough, but almost lost her glasses as she jumped down onto the path. She wasn’t used to wearing them yet and was doing her best not to worry about what Harry would think of them. She’d sent him a photo of her modelling them and he’d said she looked ‘very chic’, but maybe he was just being nice?

No. He liked her. He wouldn’t have said yes to going on a date if he didn’t.

The path wasn’t as clear as the one down from Ashworth Hall. It wasn’t meant to be, but she still managed to find it, the concentration of magic like a distant hum in the background. She took a couple of wrong turns, but when she got there, she wasn’t late. Harry hadn’t arrived yet.

She took a seat on the fallen log before the cave in the clearing. The dirt was soft under the soles of her shoes and had smudged them with an unfortunate brown colour. She dusted them off with her hand for a moment, seeing if it could be rectified with manual efforts, and when that didn’t work, she took a deep breath, reached down to her centre of energy and muttered the words of the cleaning spell she’d seen her mother use a million times to deal with stains.

She gave a little gasp as her shoes were suddenly spotless. It felt a little like going to write with a fountain pen and accidentally pressing too hard, so the ink came out in a splat. Something about discovering your affinity allowed you to focus the magic more effectively, but it took a while to get used to using that power. Or so everyone said, anyway. After all that time waiting and dreaming of the day her gift would emerge, Kay wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to get used to using it.

Still, for the moment, it was definitely useful to be clean. As long as she didn’t wander around and get them messy again, Harry’s first sight of her today would be a put-together one. Not like that time she’d been trying out face-packs with Tina and come out of her bedroom, bumping straight into him, with skin the colour of Shrek’s.

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