Page 9 of Witch You Weren't Here

‘And as we work, I will ask you some questions about your magic and about your issues with it. Then, when it is finished, I’ll take it and draw from it – hopefully – an answer as to what is going wrong and what you might be able to do to fix it.’

Kay nodded. ‘Right. I’m not very crafty, though.’

‘You don’t need to be.’ Madam Hedvika lifted some cotton batting and started to make a ball of it, the fluff moving pliantly between her skilled fingertips. ‘Now, this is going to be the head. Tell me how you think of your magic when you access it.’

Kay licked her lips and picked up a bunch of the cottony stuff too, trying to compact it, but it kept fuzzing out of shape. ‘Erm … I kind of visualise a well, inside me, where my energy is stored, and I dip down – like mentally – to pick out what I need to do a spell.’

Madam Hedvika’s eyebrows pulled together slightly, so Kay immediately became paranoid that the way she accessed magic was not the same way as everyone else. She’d never really thought to ask. Her mother had described it to her in a similar way when Kay was little and trying to practise small incantations, and it had just kind of stuck.

The older witch picked up a piece of husk and wrapped it around the cotton batting, drawing it over, and then selecting a piece of thread to tie it in place. A bracelet on her wrist jingled faintly as she moved. ‘And when it goes wrong, how does that happen? What do you feel?’

‘I don’t really feel anything until it’s too late.’ Kay fumbled to try to get the thread around the husk without letting go of all of it. ‘It rushes out of me without warning. One minute I’m completely normal, and the next, a burst of magic has escaped and is causing havoc.’

Madam Hedvika nodded slowly. ‘When did the problem become apparent?’

‘Around … springtime, I guess. Although, I think it started before that. Smaller issues that I didn’t take much notice of to begin with.’

‘And how do you use your magic on a day-to-day basis?’

Kay licked her lips and tried her best to copy making the stick-like bundles which turned out to be arms, while also figuring out how to answer. She wasn’t sure what was making her more frustrated, attempting to make the corn husk doll, or thinking about her magic. ‘I have a job full-time in an office, so not much. Just small spells at home.’ And even then, sometimes, when she was too tired, she didn’t bother.

Madam Hedvika made a soft sound that Kay couldn’t decipher and moved on to snipping the edges of one of the pieces of corn husk to help tear it into little strips.

It was actually quite therapeutic, but when it came to bundling them up and wrapping them around to make the bulk of the body, Kay’s looked like it was trying to smuggle potatoes under its skirt. She was just about ready to throw the whole thing out the window, at the clock face which was taunting her as it counted down the minutes towards her flight. But Kay had to see this through.

‘Now, wrap this large piece around the bottom and pin it in place. Then trim off the excess and stand it up. Take a deep breath and focus on it. Imagine it’s you, using your gift.’

Kay stared at her doll, uneven pieces of corn husk poking out in odd places, completely lopsided, and the memory of her as sixteen-year-old came to her. How her gift had rushed in on her as she’d stumbled down the stairs at home, foggy-headed from having just woken up. Going into the kitchen where her family were all eating breakfast—

Whoosh. Her doll went up in flames.

Madam Hedvika let out an unfamiliar word that was probably swearing in Czech and leapt up from her chair. She grabbed a vase of flowers from her sideboard, yanked the flowers out and upended the water on Kay’s corn doll, sending a flood across her worktable, soaking all the husks and dripping onto the floor.

‘I am so sorry,’ Kay whispered, looking at the wreckage and her smouldering doll.

Madam Hedvika opened her mouth and closed it a couple of times before she set the vase down. ‘No need to apologise. It is why you’re here after all.’

‘Has this happened before then?’

‘Er … no. Not precisely this.’

‘So, you’re not sure what this means?’

‘Not yet.’ She leaned across the table and picked up the soggy doll. ‘But then I haven’t done my part.’ Madam Hedvika wrapped both her hands around the body of the doll lightly and closed her eyes.

Kay waited awkwardly, wanting to fix the mess that had been made of the table, but equally not wanting to disturb Madam Hedvika when she was concentrating.

After a minute, she opened her eyes, the little frown appearing between her eyebrows again. ‘You have a blockage. You must see past it to find your centre again.’

Kay blinked a couple of times. ‘What centre? The centre of my magic? Or, like, my centre as a person?’

Madam Hedvika tilted her head for a moment and studied Kay with infuriatingly opaque eyes. She passed Kay the charred doll and then held her hands out, palms down over the table. With a muttered spell and a gentle exhale, all the water rose and evaporated from the corn husks, thread, and puddles on the table.

She sat down opposite Kay once more and laced her fingers together. ‘I think the best course of action is for you to stop using your magic entirely.’

‘What? Forever?’ Kay’s stomach did a queasy flop at the thought. She wasn’t the most active witch, and her feelings towards her gift were best left unsaid, but being told she couldn’t ever use her magic was a little like someone insulting your sibling. You might find them irritating, but to have someone else hurt them was just wrong. An affront.

‘No, no.’ A small smile touched Madam Hedvika’s lips. ‘Just until you have had a chance to work out when precisely this blockage occurred and why. Once you’ve figured this out, you must take your doll, remove the pinned husk that is helping to shape her and repeat what you did here.’

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