A Long Day in Lychford (Lychford #3)(19)

“What are you going on about, woman?”

“—suddenly they’re from ‘Ooga Booga Land.’”

“But you can see them right there, see them with your own eyes.”

“But we’re seeing different things.”

Rory was looking annoyed at her. “Here, I’m on your side, remember? You sound like her. She sent us here, so this is probably where she’s from. She’s been hiding among us, pretending not to be an alien, but now we know.”

Judith didn’t feel like arguing with this idiot. “Right,” she said, and stepped forward to address the sprites. “Afternoon,” she said, doing her best to put on her posh voice. For some stupid reason. “I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot.” She looked over her shoulder and saw Rory hadn’t followed her, but was still “hiding in the bushes,” gesturing urgently for her to come back. “That one can’t see you properly. But I bring the right tribute.” She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and found her big box of household matches, the foundation of any good witch’s pocket contents. She struck one, and solemnly held it up toward the sprites.

They seemed to confer for a moment, and just before even Judith with her Teflon fingers had to drop the match, the fire was sucked away to join their light. Judith looked between them. They’d taken care to position themselves to all get a bit of that flame. Judith took out match after match and lit them, letting them take the fire, until she only had a few left. She showed them those in the box. “Do you want to save some for later?”

From behind her, there came the noise of Rory slowly “stepping out of the bushes.” “Wise woman make fire,” he said. “Very powerful.”

Judith sighed. If only he knew. “Can you understand me?” she asked them. The sprites paused for a moment. Then the golden ball flew at her and stopped an inch in front of her nose. On its surface was an image of a diminishing ball . . . or bubble. It got smaller even as Judith watched.

Judith swore under her breath.

“What is it?” said Rory. “Are they still thinking about eating us?”

Judith didn’t know how to put it in terms he’d understand. This knot was collapsing. Very soon it would vanish out of existence. And they would almost certainly vanish with it.





3


Autumn had heaved Marcin along, putting all her hungover desperate strength into keeping him moving. Whatever was after them seemed to be like one of those predators in wildlife documentaries that circled their prey, then rushed in. Maybe her putting up a fight that time had made it wary. What did those documentaries say about facing a bear? Make yourself big and yell? Or was that for a mountain lion? Living in rural England, she hadn’t paid much attention to those bits.

Marcin had been yelling questions at her, only about half of them in English. What were they running from? It hurt! He got to the point of actually fighting her off, and so, finally, she’d been forced to drop him. Now here they were, on a slight rise among some close trees, which Autumn hoped might give her some idea of when the thing approached. Marcin was lying on the ground screaming insults at her in Polish, and she was looking around, trying to watch out of the corner of her eyes. Which was really pretty bloody difficult. It kept making you want to just keep turning your head.

How the hell was she going to get him to close his eyes and put his fingers in his ears? Would the pain of his injury even let him lose concentration? Assuming that was actually how they could get out of this.

She needed to be able to see her enemy. What could let her see it better? What could let her see something the extra senses given to her by the well in the woods didn’t let her see?

She realised. Today she had already experienced just that. That dust Judith had thrown over her. If she could find some . . . She looked desperately in her pockets, ran her hand through her hair. Thank God. Here was just a trace of it on her fingers. The dust that had actually worked must get used up as it did so. She had no idea what this stuff was, so she could only hope that Judith activated it just by thinking some magical power into it.

But, what could she actually do with it? She could throw this tiny handful of dust at whatever this thing was when she was sure it was near. That would give her something of it she could see. But having to let it again get that close . . .

Oh. Oh, she’d just thought of something awful.

No, she couldn’t hesitate. If Judith had shown her anything, it was that magic was about sacrifice.

She held open her left eye with one hand, and with the other . . . she quickly rubbed the dust into the eye, thinking magical power into it as she did so. She could hear Marcin make an uncomprehending noise of fear.

The dust was very fine. It didn’t hurt as much as she expected—

Her eye was suddenly on fire. She screamed.

She blinked and slowly the pain subsided, and the colours washed into half of her brain, and she had to close the other eye for a second, because now she could see . . . everything!

The knot they were in, she could see the lines of force all around it. It was really small, and it was . . . getting slightly smaller, all the time, she could see the tension in the coloured threads. She could see them moving. And oh God, they were, they were moving inwards!

She looked down and saw the threads that still wrapped round her, how they loosely led off to connect to . . . she could see the connections now. They ran off from her body in all directions, linked into a great weave that was wrapped around the knot, that was the knot, that also went beyond it. All she had to do was to concentrate on one particular aspect, the shrinking or the relative tension, or one colour, and there it was, at the front of her mind, clear to her sight.