Page 37 of Witch You Weren't Here

They started walking again and she tried not to look at him and think about why he would even care. He was the one who had dumped her. As a friend. They hadn’t even made it past that.

The German train felt wider than British ones – everything had a squared-off, right-angled feel to it and they managed to get two seats at a table. It was chilly with the air conditioning, especially after the gentle warmth of being under the umbrella bubble for the walk, and it gave the whole place the feeling of a clean, efficient office, reminding Kay of work again. Unfortunately.

On Tuesday, she was going to have to break it to her boss that all the expensive marketing materials were lost, and she doubted he’d react reasonably, despite it not being her fault. They had a networking event at the end of the week and the company would have to pay a premium to get the brochures made up in time – if it was possible at all.

But she had to relegate that to a substring of worries, as the one taking the top spot priority-wise was obviously making sure she was back in time for Joe’s wedding. She could deal with work crap later.

After they’d been travelling north-west for at least half an hour, the sun broke through the clouds and the rain eased off. Perhaps they were on to something, going in this direction. Maybe they would manage to outrun the storm and circle back around it.

‘Regenbogen,’ the child sitting across the aisle from their table erupted loudly.

Kay looked up and saw Harry watching the boy with a smile. He caught her eye after a moment and pointed with one of the pencils he’d been sketching with.

‘Rainbow,’ he explained.

Kay leaned forward and spotted the wide arc in the distance through the train window, the colours standing out against the grey sky. ‘You understand German, too?’

‘Too?’

‘I heard you speaking some Czech in Prague.’

‘Oh.’ He nodded and scratched the end of his pencil against the hair at his temple. ‘I always try to learn some basics before I go to another country. Reading road names and signs can be a challenge sometimes, so it’s easier to speak to someone.’

Kay was quiet for a moment. She hadn’t forgotten about his dyslexia, but equally hadn’t considered the ongoing complications it might add to his life. Especially in situations like this, where he might need to decipher other languages he was unprepared for as he got detoured across Europe. ‘How many languages do you have a sample of, then?’

‘Is that your way of finding out how well travelled I am?’

‘I suppose I am curious. We did used to talk about the places we wanted to go …’ she trailed off and his eyes flicked up from his sketchbook to catch hers. Yes, that’s right. She’d gone there and mentioned the time they’d spent with each other as teenagers. He’d made reference to things he knew about her from before, but the relationship between them hadn’t been referenced directly. The moments they’d shared. She could feel the mutual memories burning in her chest, like he’d scored that smiley face from his napkin note into the skin over her heart, and it was throbbing as she picked at it.

‘We did,’ he agreed slowly, like he was waiting for her to spring a trap. ‘I haven’t made it to South America yet, but I’ve been to a lot of European countries which were on my list. What about you?’

‘Hardly any. I’ve been to New York at Christmastime, though.’

His eyes lit up and he folded his arms, leaning on the table towards her. ‘What was that like?’

‘Cold. Busy. Beautiful.’

He nodded, one side of his smile slowly lifting into place as his gaze scanned her face, as though he could read how much she’d enjoyed the trip there and was giving himself a moment to absorb it. The fine hairs rose on her arms, but she told herself it was just the over-enthusiastic air conditioning.

‘Were you there for work?’ he asked after what felt like an hour but was likely only three seconds.

‘Oh, no. Graduation gift from my family. I don’t do a lot of international travel for work. If fact, I only …’ She caught herself before she admitted she’d only pushed to go on the Prague conference so she could get to see Madam Hedvika. That was still not something she wanted him knowing about. ‘I only usually do UK events,’ she switched it to, and then cleared her throat. ‘Is all the travelling you do for work?’

‘Generally.’

‘I guess your dad’s business must be thriving with all those foreign clients, then?’

‘Oh, no.’ He shook his head, the smile fading as he sat back. ‘No. I don’t work for my dad.’

‘You don’t? I thought that was always the plan? What do you do instead then?’

‘I’m an illustrator. Mainly for children’s picture books.’

Her mouth fell open. ‘Oh. Wow. That’s really different from marketing. What made you decide to do that?’

‘It was just … what I found I enjoyed doing most when I was at university. When I’m doing that kind of artwork, everything flows. And, I don’t know … the idea of bringing stories to life for kids, maybe help them discover a love for reading … it feels like a good use of what I can do.’ He gave a one-shouldered shrug.

She refused to melt at that. Absolutely, point-blank, refused. ‘How did your dad take it?’

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