Dark Spell by Gill Arbuthnott Page B

Smithy, butmaybe, after the argument yesterday, she’d give that a miss for today.
    She kicked off the covers. The cat had long since squirmed out of the window, a busy day of cat business ahead of her. Callie got up and took a couple of steps, then stopped and looked at the floor. The boards were covered with a thin layer of gritty grey dust. She looked more carefully, and saw that it seemed to cover the entire floor.
    At once she was transported back to that awful dream. She’d been digging… Had she somehow made part of the dream real?
    She pulled the curtains open and switched on the light. The floor was covered with a substance closer to grit than to dust. Something else caught Callie’s attention. On the wall opposite the window was a stain. She walked across the crunchy floor to look at it more closely, touched it and found that the wall was damp. The stain extended from waist height down to the floor, a hand span wide.
    What was happening? She’d thought she was getting a grip on this treacherous power, but she’d been wrong, and here was the proof.
    She had to get rid of this before her mother saw it.
    In the kitchen, Julia was loading the dishwasher.
    “I’ll do that,” said Callie as she came in.
    “Thanks, love.” Julia straightened up, pushing her hair behind her ears.
    “What were you and Dad arguing about?” Callie asked, not quite meeting her mother’s eyes.
    Julia sighed. “You know, I’m not really sure. It justblew up out of nothing. I don’t understand – you know we’re not usually like that. Don’t worry; it’ll all be forgotten by tonight.”
    A few minutes later she was gone. Callie turned on the television and ate a banana, watching some programme without taking in anything about it. She gave up and switched it off, took a dustpan and brush upstairs and swept up the grit, then opened her window wide.
    On most days this summer, that would have let in enough warmth to dry up the damp patch, but the air was dank and chilly, although it was ten in the morning.
    “Hairdryer,” she muttered to herself.
    Half an hour later, the mark was almost gone. Callie looked round her room and decided it looked like usual. She sat down on the bed with a thump. What if her mother had been right all along about being a witch? What if she was making life more difficult for herself by learning how to use her power? Maybe, in spite of what Rose and her friends said, things would go back to normal and it would fade away if she just ignored it.
    After all, she didn’t really know why the old women wanted her to start using her power. It might be for their benefit, not hers. Maybe they wanted to recruit her to their coven because she was young and powerful and their abilities were fading with age.
    They were using her. That was it. They wanted her fresh power for themselves. Why hadn’t she seen it sooner? She must be more careful about trusting people. There weren’t many you could completely trust.
    Maybe there were none.
    She glanced at her alarm clock and saw to herastonishment that it was almost noon. That couldn’t be right, surely? She’d sat down here a few minutes ago and it had only been half past ten. She realised she’d been rubbing at the mark on her wrist again and stopped, abruptly.
    When Callie checked her phone it really was almost noon. She couldn’t believe she’d been sitting there for an hour and a half: it had only felt like a few minutes.
    She needed to get out of the house.
    Callie dressed quickly and shut the front door behind her with a sense of relief. Right; she wanted a change of scene. She didn’t want to have to think about witchcraft or secrets or grumpy parents. There was no point going to the beach on such a grey day, so she set off to catch the bus to St Andrews. By the time it arrived she’d decided to go and see the new Pixar film at the cinema. Perfect – she’d revert to being a kid for the afternoon and go back to a time before life got so stupidly