The fire in the hearth suddenly crackles and flares, burning brightly and causing most of us to jump. The Hidden Folk stare behind my head, up at the staircase.
“Who has seen them?”
I turn to gaze up at Aunt Opal. She’s wearing a long dressing gown and her hair is damp. She looks calm and collected, but her green eyes are fixed on the Troll. I know what it feels like to be on the other end of her intense gaze.
“You’re here,” the Hulder says breathlessly. “We heard rumours you came back—”
“Who has seen the Fae?” Opal cuts across the fawning with the direct question.
“By the loch,” the Blue Man says. “I barter with some Hidden Folk there. One said she saw them.”
“What would they be doing all the way up here?” I ask. I speak mostly because I want Opal to look at me, but she does not.
Faeries are dark creatures that cannot lie. I met too many for my liking back in Edinburgh. Sinister and malevolent, I was hoping to never run into them again.
“They’re looking for something,” the Hulder says. The other two Hidden Folk throw her glances that seem to say ‘keep quiet’. “Well, they are! And we all know what they want to find…”
“What?” I ask, hungrily.
The Hulder looks over at me and I can see my own curious expression reflected in her wide eyes.
“A monster!”
“That’s enough,” Gran says smartly. “Ramya? Ramya, where are you going?”
I move to the front door, ignoring Gran’s curt calling of my name. I rush down the stoop towards the stones and trees and the water. The vast loch stretches out before me like a flowing road. It’s as calm as my aunt, but water holds secrets better than anything. I glance around for Fae, knowing their Glamour will not conceal them from me.
I see nothing but the stillness of the water.
My cousin Marley once told me it is deeper than you can imagine. Deep as the sea.
“Ramya. Come inside this minute!”
“What do they want to find?” I call back over my shoulder, my eyes scouring the loch, searching for any sign of the unknown. “Why would they come here? What monster?”
My feet are suddenly an inch off the ground. I yelp, wondering if one of the very creatures we were discussing has grabbed me. However, as I slowly float back towards the open front door of Gran’s enormous house, I realise who is casting the spell.
Opal is leaning in the doorway, using only one hand to conduct her magic. Gran and the three Hidden Folk watch from the hall of the house, until Opal shuts the door with a pointed click so that the two of us are alone outdoors. I wriggle against invisible bindings, before she drops me unceremoniously on the steps in front of her. I glare up into her face and she looks coolly down into mine.
“Don’t run off around these parts,” she finally says, her voice soft and laced with a little menace.
I’m not entirely sure why I do it, but I turn and
blast as much magic as I can muster. It becomes a little ball of light, rocketing towards the great loch and breaking like a small firework, high above the wide, murky surface.
I turn triumphantly back to Opal, frowning as I see that her face is blank of any reaction.
“Why not send up a red flare so they can really know where we are?” she finally says.
I grimace. “You said this house is impossible for bad people to find.”
“Let’s not test that theory, shall we?”
“When do lessons start again?”
“Have you read the books I gave you?”
“No.”
“Have you done your schoolwork?”
I grunt and flex my hands. “No.”
“Then lessons are not back on.”
“Why should any of that matter? Why do I need to do English homework in order to do witchcraft?”
“No one likes an uneducated witch.”
“Says the witch who dropped out of school.”
Her mildly amused expression darkens and she grabs my wrist, jerking me forward a step. “Exactly.”
I should not have said it, but I get riled by her. I can see through Glamour; but not her. Her walls are rarely ever down.
“I want to try flying again.”
I say the words with as much pleasantness and peace as I can manage. I’m trying to behave. I know I don’t act the way they want me to all the time. so I need to show them I can be better. If they want me to earn the right to witchery, I’ll do it. I’ll show them.
