Chapter Nineteen

Callum jogged back to the cottage after rugby practice and let himself in, his bare legs blue and red from perishing cold. The extreme weather had even begun to make the national news. There was a picture in the morning paper of people standing on the ice in the middle of the Manchester Ship Canal – as well as reports of another child going missing, this time in broad daylight from a supermarket. Maybe Black Annis had re-emerged, but Callum wasn’t sure. Snatching a girl on the street and dragging her into an alleyway was one thing, but going into a supermarket and stealing a child seemed an unlikely choice for a Netherworld demon. Still, if Black Annis had started her killing spree again, he needed to stop her, and fast. As he walked into the cottage, Gran and Melissa were sitting at the table in front of the wood fire, looking intense.

‘Still playing with the radio?’ Callum enquired, putting down his rucksack.

‘No, no, we’ve moved on from that,’ Gran said distractedly, rearranging things on the table in front of them.

‘I’ll show you!’ Melissa said eagerly. ‘Watch this, Callum!’

In front of them on the table was a pile of short, broken twigs. Melissa shook back the curly hair from around her face and concentrated. Her expression was focused, but also filled with radiant excitement. She reached towards the twigs slowly, but without hesitation, like someone reaching out to stroke an unfamiliar cat.

She didn’t do anything obvious. She didn’t mutter an incantation or wave her hands about to weave a spell. But she grasped the handful of twigs and rolled them between her palms for a moment as if testing them out.

‘These twigs are rowan – protection against evil magic, remember?’ she murmured. ‘Now, watch this.’

She moved her fingers deftly, weaving the twigs into a little mat. This was the kind of thing Callum would have expected his artistic grandmother to be able to do, but she’d obviously taught Melissa well.

She began to stretch the small wooden trellis by pulling at the ends of the twigs. It was as though they were made of Plasticine. Callum caught his breath. It was amazing. In less than a minute, Melissa was holding what was more or less a shield the size of a tea tray.

‘See? Simple protection against evil. I can’t make a barrier out of energy, like you can – I’ve got to use something physical to create wards. Just the way your gran does with the charmed herbs and plants in your garden, you know? But I’ve got to learn how to weave a deeper spell of protection into the shield. At the moment it’s really just an overgrown rowan screen, pretty tame really. Although the magic I used to make it was pretty impressive, right?’

Callum nodded. ‘Yeah, pretty impressive!’ he said with a smile. ‘Anyway, we should probably do a little more work on the chime child books before you have to get home. We could go up to my room, get out of Gran’s hair . . . if that’s OK with you Gran?’ he asked, though he didn’t wait for an answer. Picking up a couple of the books from the table, Callum gestured to Melissa and they both headed up the narrow stairs to his room. He was dying to know what Melissa’s idea was. He put the books down on his bed and he and Melissa sat cross-legged on the floor.

‘OK then, let me have it, Miss Mysterious,’ Callum said. ‘What’s your big idea?’

Melissa took a deep breath and looked around her conspiratorially. ‘Well,’ she began in a low voice, ‘obviously you can see that I’m really starting to get the hang of this whole magic thing, right?’

Callum nodded, but said nothing. He wanted to see where she was heading with this.

‘I’ve been thinking – if we can combine my magic with your chime child powers, we could do something special. I think I can try to make you have a vision – one that might help us track down Black Annis, or get to the bottom of this coven.’

‘What?’ Callum said, frowning in confusion. ‘Are you serious?’

Melissa sighed impatiently. ‘Yes, of course. Look, if we can deliberately trigger a vision in you somehow, then it could give us a head start, or a vital clue sooner, instead of waiting for something bad to kick one off.’

Callum was silent for a moment. Part of him wanted to congratulate Melissa on coming up with such a daring idea, but at the same time alarm bells were ringing.

‘I don’t know, Melissa. I mean, you’ve only been learning magic for a little while. I know what you’ve been doing is impressive, but triggering a vision sounds like something else altogether. I’m not sure.’

‘Come on, Callum!’ Melissa exclaimed, but then lowered her voice again – she was clearly wary of Gran finding out her scheme. Maybe she’d already suggested it to his grandmother and she’d vetoed it.

Somehow the idea of that actually made Callum want to try it. He took a deep breath. ‘OK. I guess it’s not a bad idea, but how exactly do you plan to try and trigger a vision?’ he said.

Melissa didn’t answer. Instead, she reached for her bag and pulled out two batteries – big ones, like the kind Callum used to put in an old remote control car he had as a kid.

‘Uh, that’s your answer? You’re planning to charge me up?’ Callum said with an uneasy grin.

‘Something like that,’ Melissa replied. ‘Hold out your hands.’ She placed one of the batteries in each of Callum’s palms and then hovered her own hands over them. ‘I told you, sometimes it helps to use physical stuff to make the magic happen, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well I’m going to use the batteries to send a jolt of energy into you, and hopefully that will trigger your chime child powers.’

‘OK, hang on a second.’ Callum wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that idea but, before he could get any further, Melissa had closed her eyes and a look of keen concentration fell over her features.

At first, Callum felt nothing. Then, gradually, the batteries in his hands began to fizzle and heat up. He felt the prickle of an electric shock begin to pierce his hands and he jerked them away suddenly. The batteries fell on to the carpet between them.

‘What the –?’ he began.

‘Callum!’ Melissa exclaimed at the same time. ‘What did you do that for? It was working!’

‘I don’t know if it was working but it was definitely hurting my hands,’ Callum said, rubbing his palms.

‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Melissa taunted, with a glint in her eye. Callum still fell for it.

‘Fine. Again, then,’ he said, rolling his eyes and stretching out his hands. This time, he didn’t pull away. As the electricity seemed to build in the batteries, he closed his eyes and tried to let the feeling pass through him. He was just beginning to feel his palms tingle when he heard a loud gasp.

Callum opened his eyes to see his gran standing in the doorway to his bedroom. She had a steaming mug of hot chocolate in each hand, and the warm liquid was slopping everywhere as they shook.

‘Melissa . . . Callum . . . What on earth do you two think you’re doing?’