Spellweaver (10 page)

“So Fliss,” she said.
“Do you have any funny school stories to share?”

“Yeah, I don’t think
you’ve ever told me anything about your school,” Jamie said.
“Wasn’t it an all girls’ school?”

“Ignore that loser,”
Hollie said. “He’s just a gross pervert.”

“Hey,” Jamie protested
weakly.

“Uh.” Felicity had
lost her drink-induced joy and her smile had faded. She stared at
her glass of wine. “I, uh, don’t really have any stories to
tell.”

“Oh come on,” Hollie
persisted. “It was a boarding school. There must have been loads of
cool stuff that happened when you were all in dorms
together.”

“You were all in dorms
together?” Jamie asked, his interest piqued.

“Ew!” Hollie groaned,
jabbing her brother in the ribs.

“There really isn’t
anything to tell,” Felicity insisted. “It was really strict. We
wouldn’t have got away with locking teachers in cupboards and
faking sick notes.”

“Yeah, but the
teachers weren’t there all the time, were they?” Hollie asked.
“Come on, Fliss. You can tell us. We swear it won’t go beyond these
four walls. Don’t we, Jamie?”

Felicity tried to
concentrate but her head felt fuzzy. She was torn, as ever, between
opening up to the only friends she had ever had and keeping herself
to herself, which was what had kept her going for the last ten
years or so. A couple of hours ago habit would have been
victorious.

But things were
different now that two or three bottles of wine had been
drained.

“I don’t have anything
to tell because I, uh... I didn’t have any friends.”

There was a pause.
Hollie and Jamie exchanged glances before Hollie said: “I don’t
believe that, Fliss -”

“No, no, it’s true,”
Felicity continued. “I didn’t have any friends and I... I didn’t
have any fun.” She regarded Hollie and Jamie. Both of them were
staring at her with their eyes wide, and their penetrating gazes
made Felicity want to sink into the sofa and disappear. Instead,
she gulped down her entire glass of wine. “I was alone,” she said
quietly, staring at the floor. “I wanted to make friends. I tried
to make friends. But my mum, she - she never taught me how, so I
didn’t know what to say or how to act, so I never made
any.”

She looked at Hollie
and Jamie. “But you,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears and
her voice overflowing with emotion. “You two have been so nice to
me, and I didn’t think I wanted to be your friend but you wouldn’t
stop trying to be my friend and now I’m glad because - because -
because I really like you both.” She let out a sigh and hung her
head.

Hollie held her hand
over her heart. “Oh em gee, Fliss,” she said “That was...
beautiful.”

Felicity looked up.
“Really?”

Hollie nodded, and
then she moved towards Felicity and they embraced, clinging to one
another like survivors of a shipwreck and becoming one shaking,
sobbing mess. Jamie looked on, staring at the two of them in
disbelief, and then he rolled his eyes.

“Girls shouldn’t get
drunk,” he muttered to himself, and then he took a swig of wine
straight from the bottle.

The air grew colder,
the sky grew darker and the three friends finally succumbed to the
drowsiness that began to creep over them, falling asleep whilst
watching White Christmas. Empty wine bottles and crisp packets
littered the floor. Felicity and Hollie were huddled beneath a
blanket at either end of the sofa, whilst Jamie was snoozing on the
armchair. All three of them had somewhere else they were supposed
to be, but the drink had dampened their sense of responsibility and
clouded their awareness of the time.

None of them stirred
when the front door of the house clicked open and someone came
inside. The footsteps upon the black and white tiles in the hallway
were silent, as if the owner was simply drifting over them. They
didn’t wake up when the intruder entered the lounge where they were
all sleeping and peer into the gloom, searching for
something.

When a strong hand
clasped itself tightly over Hollie’s mouth, she noticed. Her eyes
snapped open.

“Where’s
Felicity?”

The voice came from
the shadowy figure looming above her. Unable to scream, Hollie
stared in a wide-eyed panic. She tried to struggle but couldn’t
move. The intruder raised his other hand and began to reach towards
her, and as Hollie watched she was stunned to see it burst into
flame.

There was a thudding
noise and the fire vanished. With a grunt, the stranger fell
forwards, landing limp and heavy on top of Hollie. She squealed and
pushed him to the floor. In the dim light, she saw Jamie standing
there, holding one of the empty wine bottles.

“Get the hell away
from my sister,” he breathed.

7.

Hollie’s scream woke
Felicity with a start. She flung the blanket to one side just as
Jamie turned the lights on, and was shocked when she saw the body
lying face down on the carpet.

“Oh
my God, Jamie, you’ve killed him! You’ve killed him!” Hollie
squeaked frantically.

Jamie stared down at
the motionless figure, whose long coat and hood covered him almost
completely. He still held the wine bottle in his hand, and was
clinging onto it so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. His
face, painted in an expression of horror, was a similar
colour.

“Did you see what he
did?” he gasped.

“Of
course I saw what he did!” Hollie exclaimed. “He was about to
strangle me - with hands that were on
fire
, by the
way!”

“On
fire?” Felicity sprung from the sofa.

“Actual fire!” Hollie cried. “How did he
do
that?”

“But... who is
he?”

The three of them
stared down at the intruder. It was impossible to tell if he was
even male, though they kept on referring to him as such. They all
knew that there would be only one way to confirm his
identity.

“Alright,” Jamie said,
straightening. “I’ll do it.”

Handing the wine
bottle to Hollie, he pushed up his sleeves and approached the
intruder slowly and hesitantly, as if expecting him to jump up at
any given moment. Nervously and with shaking hands, he pushed him
onto his back.

All of them recognised
the face, but it was Jamie who spoke first. “Oliver.”

“Oliver?!” Hollie exclaimed. “But - what is
he
doing here? And how did he - that fire - just what is going
on?”

Felicity felt an icy
tremor in the pit of her stomach as soon as she saw Oliver’s face.
Suddenly she knew that her encounter with him several months ago
had been real - he had conjured some kind of shining orb that
night, just as he had now tried to harm Hollie with hands that
spouted fire.

“We need to call the
police,” Hollie was saying, clutching her Blackberry.

“And tell them what?”
Jamie hissed at her, snatching the phone from her hands. “That we
just accidentally killed an ex-student who tried to attack you with
his flamethrower hands?”

“I don’t know! But we
have to do something!”

Felicity was still
staring at Oliver. She shook her head. “He’s not dead.”

The twins ceased their
arguing and looked at her.

She pointed at him.
“Look. He’s breathing.”

She was right.
Oliver’s chest was slowly but surely moving steadily up and down
with each breath he took.

“Oh my God, oh my
God,” Hollie breathed as she looked at Oliver. It was clear that
she was finding it difficult to breathe. She began clumsily fanning
herself with her hands. “I can’t deal with this. I just
can’t!”

There was something
about the way in which her friend had descended into a mode of
utter panic that kept Felicity calm, although she felt absolutely
terrified. Stepping between Oliver’s outstretched limbs, she
approached Hollie and took her by the shoulders.

“Hollie, listen to
me,” she said firmly, though her voice was still shaking. “You have
to calm down.”

Hollie nodded
vigorously, her eyes locked on Oliver. She tried taking deeper
breaths and kept shifting her weight from her left foot to her
right and back again, as if she was unable to remain still. At
last, she sank down onto the sofa. “What are we gonna do?” she
asked weakly.

“We can’t take this to
the police,” Jamie decided, shaking his head.

“We can’t leave him
there, either,” Felicity said.

“No, we can’t.” Jamie
appeared to think for a moment, and then he moved towards Oliver
and hooked his arms underneath his.

Hollie watched him.
“What are you doing?”

Jamie began to drag
Oliver out of the lounge. “I’m taking him down to the
cellar.”

“The cellar?!” Hollie
exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “Are you serious? What
for?”

“Look,” Jamie said
adamantly. “If you want to call the police, or Mum or anyone else
and tell them that we just had a fire breathing maniac attack us in
our sleep, then do it. But I won’t. I’m not going to get locked up
in prison or the mental hospital. I’m taking him down to the
cellar, and when he wakes up I’m going to ask him why he broke into
my house and tried to strangle my sister. Alright?”

For a moment, Felicity
watched as Jamie struggled to carry Oliver out of the room, and
then it was her turn to make a decision. She moved forward and took
hold of Oliver’s heavy legs.

“Fliss?!” Hollie cried
in disbelief, and then she shook her head. “This is crazy.
Crazy!”

She proceeded to
follow her brother and friend down to the cellar, unable to cease
her seemingly endless vocalisation of her fears, worries and
anxieties. Felicity and Jamie ignored her, though both of them felt
just as nervous and scared. When they got to the base of the cellar
steps, they found a chair and some rope and began to tie Oliver to
a large pipe that ran along one of the walls.

Hollie stared
open-mouthed. “You’re tying him up?”

“Well, do you want him to sling another fireball at you?”
Jamie asked irritably.

“I just think this is
silly. Tying someone up in our cellar -”

“We all know what you
think, Hollie,” Jamie said. “You haven’t stopped going on about
it.”

After that, Hollie was
quiet. Felicity watched as Jamie tied a tight, complex knot in the
rope to secure Oliver’s hands, eager to avoid any more strange
happenings. Then the three of them stood back and
stared.

The cellar was silent.
Oliver was still unconscious, and they noticed a thin line of blood
trickling from his forehead, presumably from where Jamie had struck
him with the wine bottle. His upper body slumped
forward.

Several minutes
passed. Jamie began to pace the cellar aimlessly. Hollie sat down
on an old bench and hugged her arms tightly around her chest.
Felicity sat next to her, staring intently at Oliver and trying to
take in all that happened that evening. She felt sorry for Hollie,
for she had been the victim this time, and quite understood her
panic though she did not share it. She unintentionally imagined
Oliver’s hands clapped across her own mouth and instantly tried to
shake the image from her mind.

“Do you think we
should throw some water on his face or something?” Jamie suddenly
asked in a quiet voice, breaking the silence.

Felicity looked at
him. “You want to wake him up?”

“We should do that
thing,” Hollie suggested. “You know, the thing they do on TV. They
make them smell something and it always makes them wake up
-”

“Those are smelling
salts, genius,” Jamie said, his voice oozing with sarcasm. “And we
don’t have any.”

“Well, I’m sorry!”
Hollie declared dramatically. “I’ve never tied a person up in my
cellar before, so forgive me for not knowing what smelling salts
are!”

Jamie shook his head
in irritation.

When all was silent
again, Felicity spoke. “What if he... you know...” she
murmured.

They
stared.

“I tied his hands
pretty tight,” Jamie said. “I don’t think he’ll be able to...” His
voice trailed off, for none of them had yet found a suitable word
or phrase to describe exactly what Oliver had tried to
do.

Hollie sighed, running
her fingers gently over her face. “I think he left a mark,” she
said, and turned to Felicity. “Did he leave a mark?”

He hadn’t, and
Felicity told her so.

Oliver stirred and
groaned, startling all three of them simultaneously. Jamie took a
step backwards. Felicity and Hollie stiffened. All of them watched
as their captive intruder cricked his neck from side and side and
opened his eyes.

He didn’t see the trio
straight away. His brow furrowed in confusion as he saw the
concrete cellar floor, and then he realised that his hands were
bound. He tugged fruitlessly at the ropes, clanging the knots
noisily against the ageing pipes, and then he snapped his neck
upwards and finally saw them. He focused on each of them in turn,
and then he rolled his eyes and let out a malcontented sigh. He was
more like an irritated student caught for breaking the no chewing
gum rule than a captive attempted murderer.