“Not yet,” she says. I’m about to argue but she shushes me, her eyes darting about. She moves down the stairs and onto the path. Out of the gate and along the bank of the loch. I listen, trying to pick up on whatever it is she can hear.
A car. A car driving speedily along the road towards the house. The road leading to Drumnadrochit. The road situated between the bank of the loch and the great slabs of land that are steep and tall.
“Tell the Hidden Folk to leave,” Opal instructs me, her eyes never leaving the faint headlights that are presently far away but are only growing nearer. “Now.”
I move to obey. As I reach the door, I look once more to the oak tree.
It has, at some point this evening, moved closer again.
Chapter Two
Reunited
Gran leads the Hidden Folk through the kitchen and out of the back door, without asking a single question. I find that quite amazing; if I told my mother to do something, I would be hounded with a thousand follow-up demands, and then I’d be told not to give orders.
No one in the family questions Opal when it comes to the weird or witchy.
When Gran returns to the hall, I cannot stand it anymore. I run to the front door and fling it open
once again.
Three witches and my cousin Marley stand at the gate to the house.
Aunt Leanna. A healer who can make plants and flowers bloom.
Cassandra, my mum. Hard, tough, and capable of setting this entire house ablaze.
Then, Aunt Opal. Who can do anything.
I don’t look at them for long; I turn to my cousin. We’re the same age but that is probably all we have in common. Right at this moment, he looks dazed and a little afraid.
Which worries me.
“What’s happened?” I fire the words at them.
Leanna and Mum exchange a glance and there is hidden communication there. I can see through Glamour but I cannot read minds, and it needles me when the three of them have their secret conversations.
“Sirens. Portia.”
My gaze jerks to Marley. He was the one who said the words, clearly going against the wishes of his mum and mine.
“She’s here?” I ask. “In Scotland?”
“In Edinburgh,” Leanna says quietly. “We’ve been planning—I mean we always said if she came, we would have to leave.”
“But we’re just regrouping here, right?” I say, stepping back to let the four of them enter. “We’re going back to fight!”
All four adults turn to stare at me. Leanna looks worried, Gran and Mum look as if they are about to reprimand me and Opal’s face, as ever, is unreadable.
“I don’t know, Ramya,” Marley says. “She’s scary. Different.”
“I know, I’ve met her,” I snap. I feel instantly guilty when he flinches at my tone.
But I have met her.
I met her so many years ago. A party in our house, when I was small. She could put all the adults in the room under some strange sort of spell with her voice, even Mum and Dad.
But not me. I saw through her. Even if I couldn’t quite say what I was seeing.
*
We’re all sitting around the table. Marley is behaving himself and eating his stew. I can barely touch mine.
“We are going to stop her, right?”
I ask the question loudly, enough to startle Aunt Leanna out of a trance. Mum exhales and glances at me. “Don’t be silly.”
“What do you mean?” I look at all of them; none of them will look back. “Who knows what she’s going to do to—”
“There’s no point being hysterical or jumping to imaginary conclusions,” Mum interrupts me. “Best to just lay low.”
Gran gets up to leave the kitchen, but I’m too stunned at Mum’s words to take much notice. “Lay low? Because that worked so well last time. Letting Ren waltz in and almost kill—”
“Enough.”
I stare at Opal, who was the one who spoke the word softly but with great intention. “It’s true.”
“You don’t have to speak every opinion that you have, Ramya. Not everything is black and white.”
