Chapter Sixteen

A few days passed, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. No more clues about Black Annis or the coven. Callum thought it was a bit ironic that he was so desperate to hear what would essentially be bad news, but all the waiting and not knowing was really starting to get to him.

School seemed even more mundane than usual, given what he was facing, other than teachers warning the students to be careful given the spate of young people going missing from Leicester. But as Callum was stuffing his maths book into his bag after class, he noticed the two boys near him had their heads bent together while they gathered up pencils and paper.

‘Yeah, it was dead weird,’ one said. ‘We were just coming along the Stockport Road, you know by the industrial estate, at the big roundabout? Well, Dad slowed up to wait for the traffic, and these two little girls in long grey dresses ran right across the road in front of us. They didn’t look, just ran right across the road. Dad slammed on the brakes and honked his horn but they still didn’t look. It was like they couldn’t see or hear us at all. Like they didn’t even know there were any cars around them.’

‘Travellers, maybe?’

‘Traveller kids don’t dress like nuns! And the other weird thing was that when I looked up the drive they’d just vanished. There isn’t really anywhere to hide there. It was like they’d completely disappeared.’

‘Ghosts!’

Both boys laughed nervously.

If only they knew, Callum thought. So Melissa really wasn’t the only ordinary person who was starting to see apparitions. The Shadowing was starting to affect everybody. Even without the threat of the coven and Black Annis, things were stirring in the Netherworld, and Callum would need to fight them – not just in Marlock and Leicester but everywhere. Probably all over the world. Callum swallowed, trying not to let his thoughts overwhelm him. Pushing his seat back as the second bell went, he quickly made his way to his English class.

He was late anyway, and as he sat down next to Melissa, she mouthed, ‘You OK?’

Callum nodded, but was interrupted by Mrs Higgins at the front of the class.

‘Nice of you to join us, Mr Scott,’ she said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Now, if you’d all like to open your textbooks to page fifteen. In fact, Mark, Richard, why don’t you two come up here and act it out for us?’

The two boys made their way to the front of the classroom and began to struggle through the Shakespearean text. After a few minutes, Callum saw Melissa reach over and pass him a note.

You look knackered. Like that leathery demon thing from the chime child books yesterday!

She’d written with a smiley face, underneath five lines of notes on Much Ado About Nothing. Callum chuckled, but then tried to cover as the teacher looked over, pretending to be amused by the scene his classmates were enacting. He hoped it was meant to be from a comedy.

Callum scribbled an answer below Melissa’s message.

Stress! Still no visions. Heard Tom & Ben laughing about seeing ghosts just now too. Feel like something’s coming, but don’t know what to do about it.

Melissa answered back almost immediately.

It’s good they didn’t really believe it. Did Jacob have any ideas?

Callum glanced over at what she’d written and shook his head.

Melissa shrugged as she carried on writing.

We still have time though, C. You’ve got the hang of healing and shield, right?

Callum read quickly and then scribbled back:

Kind of. Just hate all this waiting around.

Callum didn’t use written communication much – he had no computer at home and no mobile phone, and no one to send letters to anyway. It surprised him how much writing his worries down helped.

If only there was some way to draw Annis out . . .

Are we too old to act as bait for her?!! Melissa wrote.

Callum raised his eyebrows and shook his head disapprovingly, flipping the sheet over to continue on the back. He’d completely lost focus on anything to do with school, English, or Shakespeare . . .

Don’t even joke. You saw what she did to that girl. Seriously, this is not good. Need a breakthrough, and soon.

He slid the page back across to Melissa’s desk, and she nodded at him with a more sombre look on her face. She bent over the paper to write.

I know. Well, it’s Sat tomorrow. Am due round at yours again for magic lesson, and we can do a good sesh on chime child books too.

Callum read Melissa’s note, then glanced over at her and shrugged. It was all they could do really. Melissa beckoned, as if she wanted the page back so she could add something to it, and Callum picked it up to hand it to her.

‘CALLUM SCOTT!’

A copy of Much Ado About Nothing came slamming down on Callum’s desk, pinning down the sheet of paper. Callum jumped and looked up to see his English teacher standing in front of him, seething.

Mrs Higgins wasn’t one of Callum’s favourite teachers. She was a tall, thin woman, and a real stickler for rules.

‘Taking notes on the play, are you, Callum?’ Mrs Higgins asked with icy sarcasm.

Callum stared up at the teacher mutely, too startled to lie.

‘They’re my notes, Mrs Higgins,’ Melissa injected quickly.

Mrs Higgins glanced at her. Melissa might be the class oddball at times, but she was one of the top English students in their year, and rarely gave the teachers any grief.

‘Is that so?’ Mrs Higgins said suspiciously.

‘Yes. Callum asked to see them. We’re only reading through the play at the moment, right? It’s not a test or anything. I thought it would be OK to show him. I mean, there isn’t much there, I guess maybe it’s not worth his while going over it yet –’

‘I’ll take that,’ Mrs Higgins demanded, glaring at Callum and ignoring Melissa’s reasoning. Callum felt panic rising in his stomach. He and Mrs Higgins both reached for the sheet of paper. Callum would have crunched it into a ball and hurled it out the window, if necessary, to avoid his teacher – or anyone else – reading it. They’d been so careless, what were they thinking?

But, to Callum’s surprise, Melissa smoothly pulled the page from his desk a second before either Callum’s or the teacher’s fingers touched it. With the wrong end of her pencil she made a rapid, sweeping gesture over the page, as though she were pretending to rub something out.

Then with quiet confidence, as Mrs Higgins stretched her hand toward her, Melissa handed the teacher the sheet of paper without protest. Callum clenched his teeth and his fists. He sat and waited, looking down at his desk and feeling his cheeks burning furiously as Mrs Higgins scanned the page.

After a moment, Callum heard the sheet of paper being flipped over as the teacher glanced at the other side. Then she tossed the piece of paper down on Callum’s desk and walked back to the front of the class.

‘Go on, Mark. Sorry about the interruption. From: “Everyone can master grief but he that has it.”’

Callum looked at his desk and gasped. He couldn’t believe it. Apart from those five original lines Melissa had written about the opening of the play, the page was entirely blank.