Chapter 2 A Witch’s Home

2

A Witch's Home

MAGIC IN THE mundane can be difficult to find, but it is always waiting patiently somewhere, snuffling quietly, curled up like a sleeping animal and ready to be found by those searching hard enough. Flat 31 was one such enchanted place. Small and shadowed, with wonky cupboard fronts that didn't quite fit properly and a temperamental back right hob ring that had needed fixing for months, the kitchen inside was nevertheless filled with magic. Every inch of it was covered with the stuff, from the heap of used teabags on the drainer to the mixing bowl in the corner. Even the butter dish was charged with magic, because this was the home of a witch. Albeit a humble one.

"…talking about losing that magic in a relationship, you know? That real, enchanting kind of magic between the two of you that can only be considered witchcraft. For many couples it—"

The radio clicked over again.

"Goal! That magic left foot of his once again, some kind of sorcery from the boy in—"

"You've got to be joking."

"Good morning, Jane. Yes, Londoners will no doubt be disappointed to hear that the unseasonably warm spell is officially over for us. That dry, sunny, altogether rather lovely late summer spell—"

"Oh, for…"

The button was pressing of its own accord to anyone who happened to be watching. Finally settling on a station, music quietly hummed alongside bubbly splashes coming from a sponge working diligently against last night's plates, which positioned themselves neatly on the drainer. Across the worktop, a stack of post shuffled itself into tidy piles. One was for brown envelopes demanding money, another for shiny flyers from pizza places and window cleaners. The most important pile was across the room, a rainbow of brightly coloured envelopes, which had been busy lining themselves up on the coffee table for several days. As an orange one addressed to Belle Blackthorn landed on top, ready for her birthday tomorrow, the kettle boiled itself with a soft babble.

"I swear I literally just paid this," Belle muttered, ripping open a particularly uninviting-looking water bill and immediately casting it aside on top of the microwave to deal with another day. Only the most astute of eyes would have noticed the neat flick of her finger that guided a teabag from jar to mug.

"Considering one member of our trio uses their own spit and tongue to wash, we don't half get through a lot of water." Belle spoke to the cat at her feet, who was weaving her way in and out of her ankles with a purr. "All right, Jinx, all right. Greedy guts."

The cat was distracted from her quest for food by a rogue spark of magic that flittered by, weightless in mid-air like the translucent wings of a moth. She frantically batted at it with her paw.

"I really need to hoover. That stuff gets everywhere."

A handful of reliable household charms aside, Belle was a dab hand at keeping her unique abilities largely to herself. It wasn't that she was ashamed to be a witch. After possessing her powers for very nearly fifteen years to the day, her home was packed with telltale signs of the truth. They were quietly proud but subtle enough to not invite unwelcome questions or complicated answers. Crystals were positioned for charging in all the right sun spots (although there weren't a lot of those, because she would have been paying double the rent for a south-facing terrace). Her bookshelf was lined with a few almanacs and rune guides passed down from her mother, now wedged inconspicuously between childhood favourites and splattered cookbooks. Bottles of moonwater, peacefully powerful. Coloured candles for all requirements. Dream and shadow work journals. All small signs of a quiet witch, like whispers woven here and there, but the secret largely kept itself these days. Nobody ever noticed the magic, dusted through all corners of her life like dewdrops caught in cobwebs, because nobody was ever looking for it.

Magic for Belle was a comforting constant, which felt like home on the occasions that she did call upon it. It was just that, when working long hours through the week and living in a small maisonette above a café, the faint smell of espresso lingering from dawn until dusk against the clockwork sirens of London traffic, she found there wasn't a whole lot of use for practical magic.

Belle's powers were not completely dormant; they were just a little sleepy. Running a small and somewhat chaotic bookshop hardly required creative hexes or mystical menageries to be whipped up on request. She did now throw together the weekly horoscopes for the Lunar newsletter after the team discovered her knack for surprisingly accurate predictions, but even that only required a quick side glance into a miniature crystal ball that she'd deftly disguised as a paperweight. She certainly wasn't bothering the natural order or creating too much divine chaos when she miraculously managed to fix the broken photocopier or match a customer to their perfect historical fiction with a quick Lectio Adaperio incantation. In fact, the most sparks that ever flicked from Belle's forefinger probably came when the end of the tax year rolled around. It was complicated, time-consuming magic, squaring it all with Pecunia Tributum , but it saved her from wading through the chaotic records she failed to keep on top of at Lunar and was therefore worth the effort. Cheaper than an accountant, too.

Belle gave Jinx a scritch behind her inquisitive ears and received a quiet meow in return.

Even as a fifteen-year-old sorceress with fresh powers at her fingertips, those powers hadn't had a chance to display themselves with too much exciting fanfare, given the setting of a sleepy northern town and an all-girls school. A new haircut here, a vanished spot there, some particularly great cakes with colour-changing icing for friends' birthdays. An underrated highlight had been using her powers to implode a tape recorder to avoid the beep test during a PE lesson.

Then, magic had been actively difficult and painfully awkward to handle. Belle had always been a force of calm, physically recoiling at the thought of causing a fuss or drawing attention. And if you're trying to avoid the spotlight, it's a bad idea to get bold with your magic around teenage girls, who are finely tuned into spotting that sort of weirdness in a heartbeat. The whole witch thing had been largely mortifying, often showing itself of its own accord before she had mastered keeping her magic in check. Eventually, she had learned to control it. Even embrace it.

But the chance for her magic to prosper and shine had continued to dwindle ever since. Once, the purposeful dimming of her powers had been through shame of being different. Now, at one day before thirty years old, it was instead a case of magic slipping into the shadows, barely noticed, forgotten and neglected over time.

Belle flung herself down onto the green sofa covered with layers of blankets and a small fort of cushions that she shared with two flatmates: one human (allegedly) and one tortoiseshell feline. The latter leapt with a chirp onto her chest and settled with contentment on her shoulder.

It wasn't that she was too dull or boring or unadventurous for magic. She had her fair share of adventures and travels under her belt; she had largely done what a girl in her twenties was supposed to have done, as far as she could tell. But as life had begun to unfurl like two silk ribbons, one in front and one behind her, Belle had learned that following the non-magical ebb and flow without too much resistance tended to make things easier. While trying to tread through life successfully, she fought to keep magic subdued: ticking boxes, making everybody happy, never causing a fuss.

And realistically, what does one even do with magical powers, anyway?

Lying flat with the cat balanced under her chin like a warm, only slightly suffocating beard, Belle flicked out her left index finger in the smallest of gestures and aimed it over her head at the kettle, which swiftly poured itself into a kitschy cauldron-shaped mug. Her finger absent-mindedly wound three clockwise circles in the air, and a teaspoon echoed her movement. Infusing her intentions was one of the old habits that she'd picked up from her mum. Stir clockwise to bring positivity, anticlockwise to banish negativity.

The mug floated gently from the kitchen to park itself on a coaster. As it approached through the air, steam billowing from the rim, the bedroom door across the living room flew open, and Belle leapt up to slam her hand down onto the mug. She winced as droplets of scalding tea splashed over the sides.

"Right, I'm going, I'm going. Don't talk to me, I'm late."

Ariadne, wrapped in a thickly padded coat and a giant scarf that could have doubled up as a duvet, hurtled out of her bedroom, always a matter of minutes from mattress to door.

"And I mean it. Don't you dare eat that last croissant. It's got my name on it, and the thought of it is giving me one vague ray of hope to cling to through my meetings of death."

Belle's heart thumped from the adrenaline rush. Luckily, Ari continued to spin like a whirling dervish from key hook to shoe rack, entirely oblivious to Belle's flash of panic.

"That croissant is all that's good in my miserable, hideous life right now."

"You're being ridiculous," Belle called.

"I will murder you in your sleep."

"All right. Staying away from the pastry. I hear you."

Ari's constant faffing at any given time was a contributing factor to Belle's witchery having remained secret for so long. Her hair was wet and hastily braided, leaving damp shadows on her coat as she grabbed the coffee cup waiting on the side, filled earlier by Belle as part of their finely tuned daily routine.

"You better. Late meetings this afternoon, but I'll be home for tea. Love you, love you, bye bye bye bye…" Ari's voice trailed out into the corridor as she slammed the front door behind her.

Belle audibly exhaled as she collapsed back on the cushions. One day, her blood pressure would learn to handle the rush of disguising magic at the last possible second. Blowing on the remaining contents of her mug that wasn't now splashed across the carpet or her pyjamas, she slotted the stack of birthday cards up against a vase. Glancing at the clock, she grimaced. She should probably get a move on, too.

Escaping her attention in the morning's rush was one unassuming matte black envelope which, in her hurry, caught on the door's breeze and flew from the table. It had escaped from her apron pocket when she shut up shop the night before, cleverly gliding inside the paperback at the bottom of her handbag. Arriving at Flat 31, the envelope had shrewdly manoeuvred itself onto a folded blanket on the bed but remained unnoticed when a cat parked her furry stomach directly on top of it for the evening. It really had tried its level best that morning, determined to follow her back to work in her coat pocket, but acted a fraction too slowly and slipped from sight again. Sent sailing under the sofa, it bore a silver star illustration, entwined with three words.

Tonitru, Fulgur, Pluvia. Thunder, Lightning, Rain.

LATER THAT DAY, Belle pushed her thumb into her forehead in an attempt to stimulate the wilting brain on the other side of her skull. The three-o'clock haze was kicking in, the pixels of the computer screen blurring in front of her eyes as she catalogued copies of a shiny celebrity autobiography in the stock cupboard. The need to procrastinate was seizing control. Sentences were crashing into the ends of each other, hanging precariously off the end of her computer screen. Caffeine would probably help. Or chocolate.

She kicked back on the wheels of her chair and spun to glance out of the stock-room and onto the shop floor, hoping to spot an unsuspecting colleague who might volunteer a snack run.

Her line of sight was invaded by an enormous autumn wreath. An army of vibrant reds, oranges and golds marched towards her periphery, Monica's tiny height and chestnut hair struggling somewhere behind it. Belle maintained that her colleague was the coolest person she'd ever met, covered head to toe in a patchwork of colourful tattoos, as well as a constant rainbow of paint swatches all over her clothes and fingers, residuals from her art coursework. She was something of a mythical creature to Lunar's youngest customers, who always left gleefully covered in the never-ending supply of stickers that were drawn from the pocket of Monica's apron.

"Where do we want this, Belle?" Monica asked, holding the wreath at arm's length. "It smells a bit weird."

"It probably just needs airing out," Belle said uncertainly. "It's for the front door, there should be a hook in the big box, too. Actually, make sure there's no mice in—"

"Belle Blackthorn. How's my favourite wonder woman?"

Monica's face, poking through the hole in the foliage, plummeted as she clocked the man to whom the roaring voice belonged. Suddenly overtaken by the urgent need to decorate as quickly as possible, she shrugged apologetically as she made a swift exit. Belle shot her a scowl that she hoped effectively communicated the meaning of ruthless traitor . Training her face to the picture of professionalism, she leapt up.

"What can I do for you, Christopher?"

Without bothering to get any closer or even to glance up from the pager in his hand, her boss shouted across the bookshelves. As always, he was oblivious to the many heads nearby that had turned in frustration at his lack of volume control against the peaceful hum of the shop. His corporate presence in Lunar always felt wrong, unnatural and jarring, like the full-body jolt that shakes a sleeper from a dream. Belle bolted through the shop to meet him in an attempt to lower his volume, knocking over a stack of magazines in her haste, with apologetic half-smiles to the customers.

"Mind jumping onto this call with the bank for me, darlin'? Got held up at the gym this morning, so haven't had a chance to read the files that Mum dug out. Waste of my time anyway, to be honest. Not showed up today, has she? Wish we could all be bloody part-timers," he guffawed.

Belle felt the anchor of her stomach plummet.

"You're all right to step in, yeah? It's the big one, they're not happy," he continued loudly.

"Well, no. I mean, yes. I can. But I'm just in the middle of a stock check, and we've got the author signing this evening, so there's a lot to—"

"Brilliant, thanks, sweetness. They're expecting you. I'll be back later." Having landed the reply he always knew that he'd hear, Christopher had already started to retreat to the personal office that he'd somehow wangled on his arrival, sacrificing their old staff room for his own private space. At no point had he looked up at her from his pager during their conversation.

Belle's eyebrows almost reached her hairline. "You're leaving? Have you got any notes? What's it about?"

She mentally ran through her immediate to-do list. Working her usual shift, obviously, but the children's entertainer wanted to discuss the Halloween party, too. Although she couldn't think about that until she'd finished the personal reading recommendations with customers that were booked in for the afternoon. Jim's performance review was pencilled in for sometime around five o'clock, and that had already been pushed back last week. Then there was double-checking those numbers that Violet had requested and a visit booked in with a potential new supplier for the stationery corner. Belle had wanted to give some time to an idea she'd had for evening craft classes, too.

Christopher obnoxiously batted his hand to dismiss her, his shirt straining across his chest. "You'll be fine, kiddo, you always are. Something about predictions, might be a few investors listening in, the big family names that Mum won't want to disappoint. Just run them through the outlook for the quarter. Fire any feedback over to me to handle, but if you could let them know about the drop in profit across the board. They won't like that one. It is what it is, yeah?" Still looking down at his pager, he shot her a dismissive thumbs-up over his head while walking away.

"Yep."

"Oh, and do something about all that orange crap in the window, yeah? It looks like a jumble sale. What were you lot thinking? Get the financial stuff on display, business autobiographies, entrepreneur guides and that. A bit of aspiration for the blokes who need it."

"Really? Your mum gave it the thumbs-up," Belle said quietly, trying to swallow the bitterness in her voice. She had spent days putting the suitably spooky window display of Halloween horror reads together, inking the lettering on the glass and hanging the paper decorations. She had forced Ari to carve several large pumpkins with her, making the entire flat stink of gourds in the process. They'd carried them all the way to the shop in a collection of bulging bags to sit them amongst the scariest reads she could think of on a bed of dried grasses, along with a scattering of plastic black cats, bats, rats and a handful of witch hats for good measure. It looked particularly perfect when the sun went down, the windows giving out a warm glow against the chilly evenings.

Christopher snorted. "The woman's lost it, so that sounds about right. This place is a joke. I keep telling her she's wasting money on all this novelty nonsense. I want it gone by the time I'm next here, no arguments."

Once he was out of earshot, Belle retreated to a quiet corner of the shop and promptly booted the display board to her right with feeling, making a woman reading just behind jump a foot from her armchair. Belle apologised hastily, then knelt down to pretend to tie her lace as she fixed the damage with a disguised flurry of Turbamentum Reversio sparks. She crouched against the nearest shelf, picked up the last of the scattered drawings and papers and dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Monica sidled over and leaned above her, offering out a steaming mug as some kind of consolation prize. Herbal teas were her cure for all and were always accompanied by the biscuit tin, too. "He's an arse. Sorry for abandoning you."

"You're a turncoat, but I won't hold it against you." Belle accepted the mug gratefully. "Once again, we step up to do every part of that man's job for him, and somehow he still manages to ruin everything."

"No, you step up to do it for him. We step in to help when you look like you're about to go insane or land yourself in prison."

"Don't worry, it's not like he's on all of our salaries combined while hoodwinking his lovely mum, out of office three times a week, mocking the bestsellers, mistaking the authors for the postman, all while taking credit for anything we've ever created and simultaneously turning this wonderful place into some kind of corporate wasteland. Oh, no, wait, we are in fact in hell. And it's all my fault."

"Maybe. But look on the bright side," Monica chimed. "At least he's moved on from talking to us directly from the neck down. Now he stares at the pager instead, which is a huge improvement in my mind."

Belle scowled.

"Just think. We could have been existing in a Christopher-free world with you at the helm if you'd accepted Vi's offer. We might even have Mrs.Abbott's cupcakes back on the coffee cart again," Monica said, chancing a lack of tact as she glanced gingerly at Belle.

"Thank you for that."

"I know you had your reasons." She sighed. "Although you know we think they're completely wrong ones."

"Well, if it's any consolation, I can confirm it feels categorically awful to turn down your dream."

"I still don't really understand why you did," Monica said.

"Because I'm not ready. I couldn't do it. There's a lot that could go wrong, more than could go right. And I don't deserve it, anyway." They drained their mugs in unison. "Although, having said that, I'm not sure I deserve a man coming in and turning my favourite place in the world into what's starting to feel like an after-work bar in the financial district, either."

"At least then we'd be drunk," Monica offered. "Still, promise me you won't leave. No one else here is weird enough for me to eat my lunch with."

"Thanks?" Belle snorted, then pinched the skin at the bridge of her nose. "Well, I need to do something. He walks all over me, takes the credit for the fact we're somehow still afloat despite all of his awful decisions. And there's literally nothing I can do about it. It's my own fault. Every time I so much as mention it to Vi, she just rolls her eyes and says that he's a businessman."

"What does that even mean?"

"I think it means he wears a suit. How do we stand up to a man who allegedly ‘knows business,' when we're just the silly little guys actually selling the books?"

"We attack at dawn? Or at the morning meeting, anyway," Monica suggested, tilting back against the wall above Belle, who was still slumped on the floor in defeat. "Or, I guess, we leave before we watch the whole place burn."

"I won't leave, don't worry," Belle said, then hesitated. "Maybe I will leave. I should leave. Should I leave?" She searched her friend's face for an answer, then sighed heavily. "I can't abandon Lunar." She offered her hands to Monica, who tugged her to her feet.

"Life really loves to chew you up, doesn't it?"

Belle nodded. "And then rather than spitting you out and giving you any kind of escape, it slowly digests you until you're a rotted, relenting piece of your former self. Just covered in enzymes. And Christopher's effusive sweat."

Monica shuddered. "So much sweat."