The Language Of Spells Part 25

Cam gave a gallant attempt at a smile. 'I was trying to get you naked.'

'Oh.'

Gwen saw a wave of irritation pa.s.s across his face. 'Magic powers don't exist. You can't believe that you have them. Not really.'

Gwen gave a small laugh. 'Look, what about cooking? That's a kind of magic. You take eggs and flour and b.u.t.ter and produce something that doesn't look like any of them.'

'That's called chemistry, Gwen.'

'Now, yes, because we know about it. In the future, science will probably explain why I can find things, too.'

Cam shook his head. 'I don't want to talk about this. You're better than this. Magic is a word used by children and by adults as a way to scam the vulnerable and stupid.'

'You think I'm faking this to make money?' Gwen's face was white, her lips a narrow line. She placed her wine gla.s.s on the coffee table with exaggerated care.

'I don't know. I hope so, because the alternative is that you're a gullible half-wit-' Cam stopped. 'Sorry. I didn't mean that.'

'Yeah. You did.' Gwen picked up her fleece and made for the door.

Cam caught her arm. 'Don't go. I'm sorry.'

'It's fine.' Gwen avoided his eye. 'I'm fine. Thank you for the drink.'

'Look. It's a touchy subject for me. I don't like people being taken advantage of and you have to admit there are a lot of charlatans out there.'

'I'm not one of them,' Gwen said tightly. 'I'm going home now. Thank you for the drink.' She shoved her arms into her fleece.

'Let me drive you back at least,' Cam said.

'No. The walk will do me good. I need to cool off. Let the house cool off, too,' Gwen added and opened the door.

'I'm really sorry.' Cam had crossed the room. 'I believe you.'

Gwen blinked. 'Do you?'

'I believe that you believe it. Yes.'

'Well, that's not the same thing at all,' she said bleakly.

'It's the best I can do,' Cam said, looking wretched.

She knew how he felt.

'Please let me drive you back,' Cam said after a pause.

'I'm sure it's perfectly safe. As everyone keeps telling me, this is a nice town.'

Cam frowned. 'Why do you sound so bitter about that?'

'You wouldn't understand.' You belong here.

Cam looked at her with total frustration. 'Why do you keep doing that?'

'What?'

'You go quiet. Or you give a bit of an answer. Or you evade the question. Or you change the subject. You used to do it all the time, too. I'd forgotten because I think I'd idealised everything about you. About us. But it's really f.u.c.king annoying. Why can't you just talk to me?'

Gwen realised she was pausing again. Going silent. Whatever. 'You don't want to hear about what I'm going through,' Gwen said. 'It's difficult to talk when I know you think half the things I say are insane.'

'What about other stuff? Real stuff?'

'But that stuff is real. I know you don't believe it. I know you think-'

'I think you use it to hide behind,' Cam said. 'Like when you left. You couldn't handle things so you just ran away.'

'You have no idea what you're talking about.'

'Probably not. That's exactly my point.'

'Do you remember your dad's fiftieth birthday party?'

Cam frowned. 'What's that got to do with anything?'

'You told me about it, but I didn't know if I was going or whether your father even knew I existed or what.'

'I don't see-'

'Your mother called me beforehand. To make sure I wasn't attending. She also told me I was no good for you.'

Cam smiled a little. 'That sounds like her. She didn't mean it; she's just very-'

'She said that I was holding you back, that if I cared for you even a little bit, I should leave.'

Cam stopped smiling.

'She said I was going to ruin your career and your life.'

'And you just left.' Cam's face was hard, his expression a closed door.

'I was eighteen. She's pretty scary.' Gwen knew that was a cop out. She'd been eighteen years old, not eight.

'But you didn't say anything.'

Gwen chose her words carefully. 'Things weren't brilliant with you and your parents. I didn't want to make things worse and, besides, I thought she was probably right.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I was never going to fit into that world.'

'I didn't ask you to.' Cam ran his hands through his hair, visibly annoyed.

'No.'

There was a pause that lengthened into a silence. Gwen waited, hoping he would say something else. Something about how he'd been wrong, how he should've formally introduced her to his parents, how he should've shown her that he was proud to be with her. That he hadn't been ashamed of dating that 'crazy Harper girl'.

They looked at each other for a beat longer, then Gwen left. She closed the door carefully behind her, making sure it didn't slam, and made it out to the pavement before the tears spilled onto her cheeks.

Chapter 17.

I'm so angry with her. How can she lie to people? Telling them what they want to hear and charging them for the privilege. It's immoral. I raised her better than that. She's changed. She says she has no choice and it's for the sake of the girls, but she's doing no better than I did there. Ruby's expecting. It's not common knowledge, but it will be soon. If only she'd come to me, I could've given her something to take care of that little situation. Too late now. I had one of my urges. I had to give her a nail, probably because of the iron. Couldn't do anything else until I'd delivered it. I left it for her outside the house because I'm not allowed in.

Gwen felt grateful for the first time in her life that her gift was finding lost things and not something else. Iris's compulsion to give people what they needed sounded awful. Especially when she wasn't even allowed to see the person to explain. Gwen knew what the ache of finding was like; it consumed her until it was done. What if Ruby had never found that nail lying outside her house; what if Iris had always felt that incompleted task, like something sharp digging into her skin?

Gwen stared at the open journal and, on a whim, ripped out the page with that entry. It was about Ruby, not her. If she could persuade Ruby to read it, maybe she'd feel a little differently about Iris. After all, it showed that she'd cared. She'd known that Ruby had pregnancy-related anaemia and, in her own slightly nutty way, had tried to help.

The next page in the journal had a recipe for fruit cake. She ripped that out too, and tucked it into one of the blank notebooks that Iris seemed to have bought in bulk. Then she started to go through the rest of the journal systematically, clipping out anything that featured Ruby and adding it to the pile. She wasn't Iris. She wasn't going to hex Ruby into changing her opinions, but perhaps she could open her mind with a little family history.

The phone beeped as she began sticking the fragments into a new notebook. She held her breath until she saw that it wasn't from Cam. It was Katie. She swallowed her disappointment and replied that Katie was very welcome to visit after school. She put the phone down and carried on sticking. There was a peculiar thickness in the air around her. 'You left everything to me, Iris,' she said out loud. 'This feels like the right thing to do.' Feeling only marginally foolish, she turned up the volume on the stereo and wrote 'Ruby' on the front of the notebook in different coloured pens.

Gwen was just sticking the last entry down when a sound in the hallway almost gave her heart failure. 'You've got to be kidding me,' Gwen said when Marilyn Dixon walked in.

'The door was open.' Marilyn didn't look even slightly abashed.

'No, it wasn't,' Gwen said. 'I bet you wouldn't have just walked in on Iris.'

Marilyn wrinkled her nose. 'It smells of glue in here. And isn't it a bit early for Christmas music?'

'That's The Supremes,' Gwen said. She flipped the notebook shut.

'Brian's gone,' Marilyn said, sinking onto the floor. 'He says he doesn't love me any more.'

'Oh, Christ. I'm sorry.' Gwen wiped the glue on her hands onto her jeans.

Marilyn looked up at Gwen. 'Please help me.'

'I don't think there's anything-'

'I know you sorted him out before. You can do it again.'

Gwen sat cross-legged next to Marilyn. 'Brian was acting under the influence of some bad advice. Some advice that was very compelling and I broke the ... Well, it was like he was hypnotized ...' Gwen trailed off.

'That witch put him under some kind of spell, I know,' Marilyn said.

'Who do you mean? Who did you go and see?'

Marilyn looked defensive. 'Well, you wouldn't help.'

Gwen closed her eyes. The frustrated witch. The phantasms. Her interest in Iris's notebooks. Lily Thomas.

'Lily Thomas,' Marilyn said, confirming Gwen's thoughts. 'And you stopped it.' She grabbed Gwen's knee and squeezed it hard. 'I want you to do the same again. Please. He says he's leaving everything behind. He's handed in his notice and bought a round-the-world ticket. He says he's going backpacking.'

'I'm sorry,' Gwen said again.

'Backpacking! He complained about carrying the shopping.'

'I don't think there's anything I can do.'

'But you can't just meddle in people's lives, you know.' Marilyn balled her hands into fists. 'It isn't fair.'

'Isn't that what you're asking me to do now?'

'I'm asking you to fix it. I want things back the way they were.'

'Do you?' Gwen said. Iris had been quite eloquent on the subject of Marilyn and Brian's marriage.

Marilyn hesitated. 'I made a promise on my wedding day.'

'As did he, presumably,' Gwen said, as gently as she could manage.

'I'm not just going to throw it away. All those years. Oh G.o.d.' Marilyn put her hands over her face. 'I'm too old. I can't start again. I can't.'

'Just imagine for a second that you could. What would you do? Where would you live?'

'I'd stay here; my mother's nearby. My friends.'

'Okay,' Gwen said, trying to be encouraging. 'And what would you do? What do you enjoy doing or wish you did more of?'

Marilyn took her hands away from her face and looked at Gwen. 'I'd like to learn about plants and stuff.'

'Gardening?'

'No, like Iris.'

Gwen got to her feet. 'Well, I can help you there.' She went to the bookcase and pulled out Iris's volumes on herbalism. 'Take these.'

'I was going to do a course in aromatherapy once. At the college. But Brian said it was a waste of time.'

'There you go, then,' Gwen said. 'Now's your chance.'

Marilyn pulled out a tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose. 'You really think I can do this?'