Witch - By Fiona Horne Page 0,33

floor. The candles had burned down, and there was salt everywhere – it was a mess.

I looked to the rest of the coven. ‘We’re going to have to go home soon, guys – maybe we’d better start cleaning this place up,’ I said.

‘Actually, you will clean up alone, Vania,’ Brenda said. ‘One must always clean up their own mess.’

I rose out of my chair, resigned. ‘All right, have you got a broom?’ I asked.

‘Brooms are not for cleaning!’ exclaimed Brenda.

I looked at her, confused. ‘What do you use to clean, then?’

‘A vacuum cleaner, of course. And don’t forget to snuff the candles, don’t blow them out. Otherwise you’ll blow away the magic.’

The twins, Bryce and Dean said goodnight and headed out as I plugged in the vacuum cleaner. My skin felt itchy from the granules of salt that had crept under my clothes. I hurried to finish so I could go home and have a shower.

Finally the salt was sucked up, the candle remains stacked neatly on the side bench and the rugs straightened. Brenda helped me with the tables and chairs. We worked together in silence, and it wasn’t until everything was back in its normal place that she spoke.

‘You have powerful magic in you, Vania,’ she said, ‘and I think you’ve only begun to scratch the surface.’

I thought for a moment about the black feeling that lurked inside me, especially when I was angry. I knew that was dark magic, and I wanted to understand it, but I didn’t want it to control me.

I wanted to know what light there was inside me, too. I knew I still had a lot to learn before I understood it all.

Nine

The next morning I hesitated before getting on the bus. I was dreading the idea of facing Matt Rock. It occurred to me, too late, that I could’ve caught my old bus and avoided him.

The previous night at the Purple Raven seemed like a bizarre dream now. In fact, every time I experienced something magical it felt like an attack of my imagination afterwards. Had all of that really happened?

‘Hurry up, missy. I haven’t got all day,’ the bus driver snapped. He was always grumpy and I missed the cute young driver from my old bus, who always smiled at me. Then again, he also looked like a total stoner so I couldn’t take the smile personally.

I figured I might as well get on with it – if I was going down, at least it would be in a blaze of glory – so I lifted my chin and walked proudly up the stairs. Matt was sitting in the second row from the back on the right, gazing out the window with a bored look on his face. He didn’t even glance at me.

I slid into a row towards the front. I pulled out my new favourite book, a giant tome called Crystallography Made Clear, and perched it on my knee, but despite my best intentions I barely read a word, because I was too busy surreptitiously looking over at Matt. He didn’t so much as look at me during the whole trip.

By the time we pulled up to Summerland High I was convinced the reversal spell had worked. But there was one final test.

I waited in my seat until Matt walked down the aisle, and at the last possible moment I stuck out my foot. His leg caught it and he stumbled. But he still didn’t acknowledge my presence, not even to yell some expletive at me. It was like he didn’t even know I existed.

Oh well, I was just going to have to get red roses from someone else one day.

Alyssa and I were pounding it out on the basketball court. Amelia was feigning period pain; you didn’t have to be psychic to know she was fine – she just didn’t like team sports. Her specialty was the solitary skill of diving. I was amazed at her resilience at first – she would jump into the pool no matter how freezing it was. But she had confided in me eventually that she was able to use her psychic ability to change the way her body perceived the temperature of the water so that it was more appealing – like a nice, relaxing, warm bath temperature, say. It always gave her an edge, and she was the only one on the swim team who never caught a cold. She offered to show me how to do the temperature-changing thing, but