Witch - By Fiona Horne Page 0,31

made all the preparations,’ Brenda said. ‘Thirteen black candles in a circle will banish the negative energy this spell has harnessed and is using to function, and the salt in that bucket will purify Vania and free her from any karmic fallout.’

‘What do I have to do? Tip it over myself?’ I joked.

‘Actually, no,’ Brenda said, ‘we’ll be throwing it at you.’ She didn’t seem at all amused.

Bryce burst out laughing. ‘Good one!’

I turned and glared at him, while the twins giggled and Dean looked sympathetic. ‘Don’t worry, Vania, this will be over and done with before you know it. Right?’ he asked, turning to Brenda.

Brenda looked forbidding as she stepped forward and picked up the bucket with both hands. ‘A reversal is no laughing matter. It will take as long as it takes.’

Everyone was silent.

‘Let’s do it. I’m ready,’ I said.

Brenda carried the bucket outside the circle, nodding reassuringly as she walked past me, her caftan billowing around her body. ‘Vania, take a handful of salt and sit in the centre of the circle,’ she ordered. ‘The rest of you can each take two handfuls of salt and then choose one of the compass points to stand on. I will stand on the point of infinity.’

The twins, Dean and Bryce got their salt and stood on the compass points, shifting and shuffling their feet around. Bryce was staring at me with a strange intensity, like he was already zoning out and casting some kind of anti-magic. I sat in the centre, cross-legged on the hard floor.

There was a loud click as Brenda switched off the lights. The room went dark. Only a sliver of light gleamed under the blind that covered the large window at the front of the cafe. I heard Brenda’s caftan swishing as she moved past me and stopped on the point with the sideways figure-eight – the point of infinity – and then silence.

After a few moments, Brenda clapped her hands loudly and the wicks of all thirteen candles leapt into flame.

‘Whoa!’ I gasped.

‘Vania, sprinkle salt around you on the floor in a circle,’ she commanded.

I let the salt trickle from my hand, swooping it in a semicircle in front of me before swinging around and closing the circle behind me.

‘Magic-makers and spell-takers . . .’ Brenda’s voice was so loud it rang in my ears. ‘Close your eyes and focus on the task at hand, for we must as one undo what’s done by the folly of our brethren’s hand.’

I closed my eyes in shame. All this trouble because of my stupid spell! But I was also excited by the drama of it all. What was going to happen next?

‘Salt,’ bellowed Brenda, ‘squeezed from the womb of our Mother Sea, dissolve all impurities. Reverse the magical deed!’

Uh oh, I thought, and I squeezed my eyes and lips shut.

I had expected the salt to be dry and sting, but it seemed to fall in slow motion, making it feel more like a shower of snow, cold and damp, swirling around me in a spiralling mist.

I realised I could no longer feel the floor of the cafe beneath me. It was like I was suspended on invisible wires over a bottomless black pit. I suddenly felt really scared and tried to call out, but my throat made no sound. I was being sucked down into a whirlpool, and I couldn’t breathe. I clawed at the air around me, my hands brushed against solid objects that were flapping about my head. They felt like bat wings, and I swatted at them frantically. The air was filled with screeching and squealing. I was losing my mind! I had to hold on to something – a thought, a concept, anything other than this nameless terror that was smothering me. What was I doing? Why was I here?

Images from the previous night on the clifftop flooded my mind, and I finally remembered the wayward spell I wanted to reverse. I again experienced the feelings of revenge and frustration and insecurity that had fuelled the spell. They built up into an enormous wave inside me and then rushed out like a tsunami flooding into the cavernous space underneath me, filling the pit until I was no longer suspended. Instead I was floating on top of it all. I felt precariously cradled for a moment, and I breathed a sigh of relief – the first sound I could hear myself make. I took another deep breath, and then I felt . .