A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3) (40 page)

BOOK: A Witch Alone (The Winter Witch Trilogy #3)

5.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

ads

And then there’s Dad of course, who is pretty remarkable himself, in his own quiet way. He could have held on to the past and grown as bitter and introspective as the witches in the mine. But he didn’t. He learned to live with questions unasked, and answered, and to be happy. He let the past go. He let my mother go. And, in the end, he let me go too.

And there’s Seth. Seth, who gave up his life for me, without asking anything in return. Perhaps he’s the most remarkable person of all.

‘Can you feel it?’ I called across to Seth, over the sound of the waves splashing against the hull.

‘Feel what?’ he shouted back.

‘My magic.’ I’d been watching him as we sailed. His shirt was off and I could see the veins on his arms standing out as he pulled on the ropes and turned the rudder this way and that, steering us across the open sea. And I’d been thinking of Abe’s magic – the way it had coursed through
my
veins, making me see life differently, changing me, linking us. ‘Can you feel me inside you, inside your heart?’

Seth only looked out to sea, his hair blowing in the breeze, his eyes as grey as the chalky channel sea on a stormy day, though today was clear and bright, full summer.

Then he looked at me.

‘You were always inside my heart,’ he said. ‘Always.’

And then he kissed me.

And the world rocked beneath my feet, as it always did, as it always does. So that my heart beat faster, and my skin shivered beneath my clothes, and my fingers curled and uncurled against his back.

When we broke apart Seth stood and cast his net out across the sea, as the waves sparkled and glinted and danced in the summer sun.

But I leaned back against the boards of the boat, my head back, and I looked up at the sky, at the endless sunny blue. The sun leaped off the waves, dazzling me, and for a moment, just a moment, I thought I might have seen a handful of snowflakes flutter on the wind.

Then they were gone, melted into the sea and its infinite possibilities.