The Magpies by Mark Edwards Page A

ears. ‘They were so noisy.’
    Kirsty and Jamie looked at each other. ‘So you don’t think we’re too noisy?’ said Kirsty.
    ‘Oh no. I’d soon tell you if you were.’
    Paul and Heather came back into the room, smelling of smoke. Jamie looked at them both and wondered if they’d been up to anything out there. He decided that Paul would have been smiling more broadly if they had. He got up and made coffee.
    All in all, he was pleased with the way the evening had gone. He couldn’t imagine that they would ever be best friends with the Newtons, but they seemed like a nice enough couple, and they did share common interests. Plus it was in everyone’s best interests to maintain peace in the building. It was a shame Lucy was so antagonistic about Mary – but he was intrigued by the idea of her being called a witch. It was an attitude that didn’t seem to belong to this century.
    After drinking their coffee they said goodnight and Lucy and Chris went down to their flat. Paul and Heather remained behind for a while. Jamie got the PS3 out and he and Paul played FIFA soccer. Kirsty and Heather chatted and finished up the wine. Jamie noticed that Heather kept glancing over at Paul, who was oblivious, too involved in the game. He smiled. It had been a good evening.
    But that night, Kirsty woke up with her heart beating fast and a cold sweat on her brow. She grabbed hold of Jamie and shook him awake.
    ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
    She pressed her hand to her chest and waited for her breathing to return to normal. ‘I had an awful dream. I was being chased through the woods by a witch, and she was trying to put a spell on me. I came to this house – and it was like the house in Hansel and Gretel, made of delicious-looking gingerbread. I ran inside and I felt safe and happy, and I was thinking about all the gingerbread I could eat. Until I realised it was actually the witch’s house, and I was trapped. She put me in a cage, just like in the story. God, it was horrible.’
    She lay back down and Jamie held her. After while her breathing pattern changed so he knew she was asleep. All that talk about witches over dinner. He didn’t realise Kirsty was so sensitive to things like that.
    The next morning, when Jamie went out to get the mail, he found a dead rat on the carpet outside their door.

Five
    Jamie hurried back inside.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘You don’t want to know.’
    She pushed past him. ‘Oh, it’s horrible! Jamie, get rid of it. Now. Please.’
    ‘OK, OK. I’m going to.’
    The rat was dark brown and eight inches long, with a tail that stretched on for a number of inches more. It was the tail that Kirsty really hated. The thought of a rat’s tail touching her, or even coming anywhere near her, made her flesh go cold. This rat was never going to trouble anyone, though. It was stone dead, its eyes closed and its mouth open, frozen in a final squeal, exposing its long yellow teeth. There was a patch of blood on its chest.
    ‘Poor thing,’ Jamie said.
    ‘It’s gross,’ said Kirsty, shuddering. The only creatures she hated more than rats were spiders. ‘You’ve got to get rid of it.’
    Jamie went into the kitchen, found a carrier bag and went back out into the hallway. He knelt down beside the dead rodent and put his hand inside the bag, grasping the rat through the plastic and pulling the bag inside out. He tied a knot in the top of the bag and carried it out to the dustbins. He was amazed at how heavy it was; how solid its body felt as he gripped it through the makeshift plastic glove. He wished he could have buried it, but they had no garden to call their own. The whole thing made him feel sad. As a teenager he had kept a pet rat called Roland. When, near the beginning of their relationship, he had told Kirsty this – extolling the virtues of pet rats, hinting that one day he might like to get another one – she told him that if he ever brought a rat near her she would never ever talk to him