A Long Day in Lychford (Lychford #3)(10)



Judith went over to it, looked at it like it was the enemy, picked up a pan lid with the corner of her cardigan, and slammed it down on the pot. She looked to switch off the heat, then realised at the same moment Autumn did that the cooker wasn’t actually on. “That’ll need cleaning,” she said. “Cleaning with the proper stuff.” Meaning, Autumn realised, stuff that wasn’t to be found in any mundane kitchen cupboard.

Lizzie went to the pot, made the sign of the cross, closed her eyes, and mouthed some words. She opened them again and saw Autumn looking hopelessly at her. “Couldn’t hurt,” she said.

“What . . . what is that stuff?”

“You made it,” said Judith. “Didn’t you?”

Autumn recalled now marching back from having yelled at Rory Holt in the street and bursting in here, stumbling from cupboard to cupboard, only her anger keeping her going, her head in a fog. She’d made something completely instinctively, with her brain switched off, like when she’d made that potion at Christmas to save herself from a spell, but this time with nobody in the driver’s seat but sheer emotion. “Yes,” she said. “I made it. What does it do?”

Judith put a hand on her shoulder, and roughly turned her to look at the opposite wall. On it, the still steaming black goo had been painted into a rough circle. Autumn remembered now the physical action of making the shape with the brush.

“It’s . . . the same shape as the one we saw in the pool,” said Lizzie.

Judith went to the sink, turned on the tap, and put her hands under the water. Then she threw what seemed an unfeasible amount of it onto the floor. She took the bottle from the pocket of her cardigan and squirted whatever that was onto the surface again. Autumn thought distantly that she wouldn’t like to risk doing the washing up in Judith’s kitchen. Judith’s idea of potion storage relied on her formidable memory and a make-do attitude that was like a magical version of Blue Peter. She banished the thought. Too happy. She couldn’t allow herself that comfort either. She was going to have to face what she’d done here. And she had a terrible feeling she now knew what it was. “What . . . we saw earlier,” she whispered. “Was that Old Rory’s kitchen? Did I . . . was that his silhouette?”

“All light still exists, somewhere,” said Judith, ignoring the question. “You just have to find it and get on the right end of it.” An image of that kitchen formed, and Judith once more touched it with her toe. “There. Now let’s rewind.”

She spun the image anticlockwise and it dissolved into a rainbow. Judith seemed to judge how long she had to wait, then put her toe down again. In the pool, Autumn saw Rory Holt in what, yes, must be his own kitchen, walking about, maybe intending to make tea. He looked drunk and furious, slamming cupboard doors.

He turned at what must have been a sound and stumbled back, incredulous.

Into the picture stepped Autumn. She also looked drunk and furious.

“I’m sorry,” said Autumn now.

“Be silent,” whispered Judith, in a voice Autumn had never heard from her before. It had sounded utterly condemnatory, with the experience of centuries behind it.

“You must have used magic to get in,” whispered Lizzie. Still keeping up that running commentary. As if it was the only help she could provide.

In the image, Autumn advanced on Rory, yelling at him, pointing at him. He started to yell and gesticulate back, to indicate he wanted her out of his house. He grabbed for a saucepan and brandished it like a weapon.

“You . . . thought he was going to attack you—” began Lizzie.

But Autumn in the image didn’t look threatened. “Don’t, Lizzie.”

In the pool, Autumn turned on her heel, and triumphantly stepped back out of frame. Rory looked alarmed once more. He put down the pan.

He flew backwards.

He hit the wall. The black ash burst from where he hit, in his shape.

Autumn looked up from the pool and at the faces of her friends. “Did I . . . disintegrate him? Or did he go through the wall? No, they . . . would have found him if he went through—”

“You didn’t kill,” said Judith. “Though I’m glad you’re feeling the weight of that. What you really did is summat that you might find harder to understand. Summat worse.”

“How could it have been worse?”

“Watch.” Judith used her foot to manipulate the image again, going back to the moment when Old Rory flew backwards. Then she spun the picture once more, to find . . . nobody there.

“So I’d gone?” said Autumn. “I mean, did I leave the moment after I . . . I blasted—?”

“Hold on.” Judith held the view where it was and “rewound” as she had before. Autumn saw herself triumphantly step back through the hole in the wall, stick two fingers up at Rory, and vanish, the hole closing, leaving only the circle. Judith froze the image and spun it again, to show Rory in the act of putting down the pan.

And then he flew backwards.

Autumn felt sheer relief surging through her.

Until Judith stepped right up to her, furious. “Don’t look relieved, you idiot!” she bellowed.

“Hey! I didn’t hurt him!”

“Oh, didn’t you? Look!” Judith threw something at her from out of her pocket. It was some sort of dust. Autumn flinched . . . and then realised nothing about her had changed, or . . . no, looking down, something seemed to now be wrapped all around her. Had that old witch . . . tied her up? No. No. She couldn’t feel whatever this was, she could only see it.

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