A Witch in Love (20 page)

To my surprise, a pile of clothes lay spread out on the coffee table in front of the fire. They looked quite out of place and I was just wondering what they were doing there when Miss Vane picked up a hanger and held it up appraisingly.

‘Your grandmother of course realized that you weren’t prepared for formal dining when you came up to London, so she asked me to pick up some suitable clothes. I had to guess your size – and your taste, of course – but I hope you’ll find something that suits, and please feel free to discard any that don’t appeal. I’ll leave you to change,’ she added, and slipped out of the door, closing it with a click behind her.

After she was gone I stared around the office for a moment and then shook myself and began to leaf through the pile of clothes. They were all labels I recognized – the Winter newsagent stocked
Vogue
just to mock us – but I’d never imagined wearing any of them. I had a horrible feeling that each garment probably cost more than the entirety of my wardrobe.

The idea of taking off my clothes in this plushy office was frankly weird, but I shoved a chair under the door handle and peeled off my jeans and Seth’s shirt as quickly and modestly as possible. The first dress I tried on was a sooty cashmere sheath that made me look like an extra from a Bond movie and the next was a slinky rose satin number that displayed an alarming amount of my non-existent cleavage.

Then I found a grey silk shift dress, cut on the bias. It was incredibly simple – just a tunic really – but it gave me curves I’d never seen before and the fabric flowed seductively over my hips like cool water. It was utterly, utterly lovely. I loosed my hair and let it fall around my shoulders, and wished that Seth could see me – in this dress I could almost do him justice.

A sudden knock at the door made me jump and I pulled away the chair and opened it to find Miss Vane outside.

‘Are you ready, Anna?’

I stuffed my clothes into the Topshop bag and left it in the corner of the sofa, then picked up my handbag.

‘Yes, quite ready, thank you.’

My grandmother was waiting in the dining room when we entered and she stood up from her seat with a smile.

‘Anna, dear. You look lovely. Thank you, Miss Vane, that will be all tonight.’

‘Goodnight then, ma’am.’ Miss Vane inclined her head, not quite a curtsey but not far off. ‘Anna.’

I sat nervously in the chair that my grandmother indicated and spread a napkin on my immaculate grey silk lap. The room was filled with small tables of twos and threes, eating and drinking and talking in low voices. A waiter came up and my grandmother glanced at a small card on the table.

‘Hmm … Let me see, Wilson. I think we’ll have watercress soup, followed by the lemon sole. With … 
pommes boulangères
and wilted cavolo nero. Does that sound all right, Anna dear?’

I nodded, too overawed to speak.

‘And a half bottle of the Gosset Grand Reserve. Do you like champagne, Anna?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ I murmured.

‘Very good, ma’am.’ The waiter gave a half-bow and retreated and my grandmother put her chin in her hands and looked at me over the flickering candle between us.

‘Oh, my dear … you look astonishingly like your mother in this light. Her eyes were just as beautiful. How old are you?’

‘Seventeen,’ I said automatically, and then realized that wasn’t true. It seemed too complicated to explain.

‘I bitterly reproach myself for all the years you were lost to me, to us. I was wrong, I realize that now, in my approach. But I never guessed how mortally offended Isabella would be, the lengths she would go to.’ She sighed and I fought the urge to reach across the table and touch her gnarled, bejewelled hand.

‘Well, we can’t undo the past, heaven knows.’ She seemed to shake herself out of her introspection. ‘Tell me about yourself, Anna. What are your interests?’

‘Well, I like reading,’ I said nervously. ‘Um, I’m hoping to go to university and study English. I’m doing English, Maths, French and Classics for A level. Er, that’s kind of it really. I’m not very sporty – I don’t do much in the way of extra-curricular stuff.’

‘That’s very nice,’ my grandmother said, and I saw that she was suppressing a smile. ‘But I meant magically. What are your strengths?’

‘Oh! I have no idea.’

‘No idea? You mean, you’re not studying?’

‘No.’ I shook my head.

‘But that’s abominable! I can see from a glance the power you have! Show me something – something simple. Let me see … This glass of water.’ She held up a crystal glass. ‘Can you turn it to ice?’

‘What – here?’ I looked around the crowded room in shock. Again her lips thinned in a smile.

‘My dear, we are all the same here. You need not hide your power among friends.’

‘Oh!’ Of course. It was obvious when you thought of it. But still, I was reluctant.

‘I don’t know – I’m not very … very practised.’

‘Please.’ She tapped the glass with a finger, her ring making it chime like a bell. ‘Please try. For me.’

I bit my lip, but there was no way out without seeming rude – and a part of me did want to show her that I had some power. And here, at least, I would be safe. I could let my magic bubble out, unworried about exposing myself or hurting passing outwith. ‘Oh … all right,’ I said at last. ‘I’ll try.’

I set the glass on the table and let my power flow out towards it, thinking of cold, of ice, of snow and hail and winter and …

It was coming – it was coming too fast, too forcefully. I tried to pull back, but too late – the glass shattered with a noise like a gunshot, shards of crystal splintering away from the frozen chunk of water. There were echoing cracks and crashes all around the room. Cries of alarm, shouts of pain – plates shattering, glasses cracking, as the cold flowed unstoppably out, turning everything to ice: the wine in the glasses, the vases of flowers on the mantle, the huge tureen of soup on the sideboard. I whimpered and strove to control it. I had it reined in within seconds, but seconds was all it had taken to devastate the room.

‘Stop! Stop!’ My grandmother cried.

‘I’m so sorry!’ I cowered in my chair, holding myself as if to stop the power escaping any further. ‘I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean … It’s all my fault. I can’t …’ I wanted to sink through the floor with shame and horror. What had I done?

‘Goodness me!’ My grandmother brushed shattered glass off her lap. ‘Well, you can’t say I didn’t ask for that.’

I couldn’t meet her eyes, but when she said, ‘Darling, look at me when I’m speaking to you,’ I could hardly refuse. And when I looked up, her face was unconcerned, even amused.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered.

‘Don’t be silly, Anna.’ Her voice was crisp. ‘It was my fault for not realizing quite how strong you evidently are. And, possibly, for choosing a less-than-wise test of your powers.’

Waiters were already hurrying round the room, sweeping and tidying, and within five or ten minutes there was no sign of my outburst except for a rip in the wallpaper behind the sideboard where the soup tureen had shattered.

‘It is of no consequence, darling.’ My grandmother nodded round the room. ‘The control will come, and look, no one is perturbed.’

It was true – they had all returned to their meals, except for those unlucky enough to have been still on their soup course, and they were swiftly being provided with fresh plates of soup by the waiters. The stains had gone and, as I watched, a waiter hurried over and smoothed the torn wallpaper back into place. When his hand passed over, the join was invisible.

‘Where
are
we?’ I asked.

‘Do you mean what is the name of this place, or literally where are we? If you mean the latter, I can’t answer that. We are in a place between, in a place we have created for ourselves. It draws its power from the lost rivers of London, trapped by men but harnessed by us. The Effra, the Fleet, the Falconbrook, the Neckinger, and all the others. The roots, the foundations for this place are in the rivers, which is why the entrances are always close to where those rivers surface – the Effra empties into the Thames under Vauxhall Bridge, at Saint Luke’s gate.’

‘And the name?’ But as I said it, a woman stopped by our table and something seemed to grip me – a chill. Her face was familiar – and it made my spine trickle with fear. Why?
Why?

‘Chair Rokewood,’ she said, ‘Chair Corax asked me to mention the paperwork from the Sennite meeting to you before I left and to ask whether you’d had time to sign the accord.’

‘Not yet,’ my grandmother answered composedly. ‘There are a few clauses I still need to consider.’

‘I’m not clear what needs to be considered, ma’am. Chair Corax made his views quite plain.’

‘Contrary to some beliefs, Corax is not the only person with an opinion on this accord.’ There was steel under my grandmother’s calmness, but I hardly listened to her words.

Instead I stared at the woman, gripped by the need to remember who she was, where I had seen her face, and why her presence here filled me with cold dread.

‘Allow me introduce my granddaughter to you,’ my grandmother said at last. ‘This is Anna, Anna Winterson. Anna, this is Ms Revere, who works here for my colleague, Thaddeus Corax.’

And then I remembered.

I remembered where I’d seen the bird insignia on my grandmother’s calling card – and why it had disquieted me.

I remembered the face of the woman opposite and where I’d seen her before.

And I knew where we were.

‘You!’ I jumped up, rocking the table and causing the candle to totter and spill.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ms Revere, and her voice was calm and light, though her eyes were wary. ‘Have we met?’

‘Yes we’ve
met
,’ I spat. ‘We met when you and Mr Peterson threatened to kill my friends and family.’

‘What!’ She gave a baffled laugh, but it sounded fake as hell to me.

‘Anna, what are you talking about?’ My grandmother stood too, looking from Ms Revere to me in consternation. I stared back at her, trying to read past that immaculate mask. Was her confusion real? Was this all a massive con, a trap? Was she even really my grandmother?

‘Where are we?’ I said through gritted teeth.

‘In the dining room!’ my grandmother exclaimed with a touch of exasperation. ‘What on earth are you talking about, Anna?’

‘Don’t give me that,’ I spat. ‘I mean what’s this place – this building? Who
are
all these people? Who are
you
?’

‘But I thought you knew,’ my grandmother said. ‘This is the headquarters of the Ealdwitan, of course it is.’

‘
You’re
part of the Ealdwitan?’

‘Yes – I am one of the five Chairs. Surely you knew all this?’

‘What do you mean? D’you think if I’d known you were one of
them
I would’ve let you anywhere near me – after what happened last year?’

‘What happened last year? Anna, please calm down, you’re becoming hysterical.’

‘Calm down? Calm
down
?’ I was almost sobbing. ‘After you threatened my family, flooded my village, killed my
friend
, for God’s sake! And you say calm
down
?’

Waiters were hurrying over to our table, ready, I supposed, to throw me out – but my grandmother made a motion with her hand and they paused, waiting for her command.

‘Anna, there’s been some misunderstanding,’ my grandmother said carefully, ‘some mistake.’

‘Damn right there has.’ I swiped at my cheeks – furious with myself for my weakness but unable to stop the tears of rage spilling out. ‘My mistake was trusting you.’

‘Anna, please.’ My grandmother reached out with her hand and I backed away.

‘Don’t touch me. Let me out.’

‘Anna—’

‘Let me out of here,
now
. Or you’ll regret it.’ I meant it. I could feel the power rising inside me in line with my fear, and if I didn’t get out soon we would probably
all
regret it. For a long moment we just stood, my grandmother and I, facing each other across the table, and then she let out a breath of defeat.

‘Very well. There’s an exit to your left as you leave the dining room, take the second turning and then it’s the third door on the right-hand side of the corridor. But, Anna, please—’

I didn’t wait to hear any more. I turned so sharply that my chair tipped backwards and banged on to the floor with a crash in the silent dining room. Then I left.

I walked as fast as I dared down the corridor, my heart beating painfully as I tried to ignore the startled glances from the secretaries.

Second left. I turned. One door, two doors, three. It was an unobtrusive thing sandwiched between two huge vases of flowers. I tried the handle and it turned – was it really possible they were going to let me go so easily? I glanced up and down the corridor; it was empty. I half expected Ms Revere to appear and block the way – but no one materialized and the door opened as smoothly as silk.