woman leant in close. ‘Did y’now? Well, divvent get lost again, or I’ll have the Peelers onto ye.’ Then she smiled: a cold smile that said ‘I’m not being mean, but don’t underestimate me.’
I had no idea what this ‘having the Peelers’ meant, and looked across to Roxy who gave a half-shrug. It didn’t sound good, whatever it was.
As Roxy’s voice on the film stammered apologies, the picture showed her progress out of the room, into an equally dark and cluttered hallway, and towards a large wooden door with a small window in the front. Her hands scrabbled for the handle, and then she turned and only the boy was standing before her.
‘I’m sorry,’ Roxy repeated, and the strangest thing happened.
The boy gave a shy smile, which was only just visible at the top of the screen, because of Roxy’s lack of height. Then he said, ‘Me too.’ He glanced behind him, then added, quieter, ‘Perhaps I shall see you again?’ His tone was sad, and hopeful. On the film his mother’s footsteps came closer.
The wooden door was open and he said: ‘That way.’ At the edge of the picture, he raised his hand in a shy wave, and the (mostly) black cat scuttled away in the corner of the frame.
Then the picture started jerking up and down as the sound changed to Roxy’s running feet slapping the road as she got away as quickly as she could.
And now she was sitting in front of me, looking smug.
‘Told you,’ she said. ‘The strange language, the lotion, the old books, the threat? She is totally a witch.’
However much I pleaded and scoffed, nothing would convince Roxy Minto that she had not had an encounter with a witch.
If you’re convinced of something, I guess it’s easy to become stubborn about it if the alternative is admitting that you were wrong and a bit childish.
‘Well, obviously she’s not going to wear a black hat and have warts. That would just give the game away, wouldn’t it?’ she declared.
‘Oh, so the fact she doesn’t look much like a witch proves she’s a witch, does it?’ I said in exasperation. ‘So what if she had had a black, pointy hat? What would that prove? That she wasn’t a witch?’
She ignored this bit of logic. ‘And she’s got a cauldron and a black cat!’
‘Black-and-white, Roxy,’ I said wearily.
‘So what?’
Everything I said was batted back to me with wide-eyed innocence. Our voices were getting louder and it was becoming an argument, which I didn’t want because Roxy was daring and fun.
‘I can prove it, you know,’ she said, and then her phone rang: a jolly, tinkly-tonkly tune on the piano that somehow suited Roxy perfectly. She glanced at the screen but didn’t pick it up. I looked at her quizzically.
‘It’s my mum. Gotta go.’
I’d barely noticed that Roxy had been alone all this time. I mean, wherever I am, usually there’s a parent kicking around somewhere in the background: bringing out juice, checking you’re wearing a warm top, or not running with scissors – just being parentish. But Roxy had been parentless all day.
Her phone rang out and went to voicemail.
‘Where is your mum?’ I asked.
Roxy jerked her head in the direction of the house. ‘Inside.’
‘And she’s phoning you?’
She let out a deep sigh as she jumped down from her chair and stood up. ‘Long story. Another time, eh?’
It was as if Roxy had been pricked with a pin and her sigh was all the air escaping, along with her fun and liveliness and everything else. I would swear that even her sticky-up hair lay flatter on her head. She locked the door to the garage and put the key under a stone. She said nothing: she knew I was watching so I knew I was trusted.
She turned and a flicker of light returned to her eyes when she said, ‘Midnight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘No. In ten years’ time. Of course tonight.’ She turned to slip through the gap in the fence. ‘It’s the witching hour,’ she said, and then she was gone, leaving me staring into the thick woods, trying to piece together what had been going on.
Roxy had said, ‘I can prove it, you know.’
What did she mean by that? Was it, ‘I can prove it: she did a magic spell,’ which of course would be yet more nonsense?
But there was something in the way she said it, a light of certainty in her eyes, which I couldn’t stop thinking about.
You see, I was on the point of dismissing Roxy as a harmless crazy: we’d have been friendly but not ‘friends’, the boy and the woman in the forest cottage would have been left in peace, and Roxy would have grown out of her belief in the ‘witch in the woods’.
But then the disaster happened, and Roxy and I became the last people to see the witch alive.
I watched the girl go back up the lane. I wanted to go with her, make sure she got home safely, but I do not think Mam would have approved. Besides she did not live far: on the other side of the woods. She had a funny little shed with an illuminated sign hanging by the door. I knew that much.
Biffa jumped into my arms as I stood there. It meant that, when the girl turned back to look, she did not see my hand give a little wave because it was sort of hidden by Biffa. I am not sure. Maybe she did see.
R. Minto.
It was sewn into her jacket on a label. I saw it when I carried her in. She also had something with wires going into the pocket. Probably one of those mobile telephones or something.
I watched her all the way to the bend in the lane in case she turned back again, but she did not. Biffa hopped out of my arms then and gave a little growl, which made me smile.
‘Do you like her, Biffa?’ I said in our old language. ‘Me too.’
I sniffed the air in the lane. The weather had been hot for spring, but it would cool down later: I could smell it. The sky was cloudless, so, when the sun dipped, the evening would get cold and Mam would want the fire to be lit to keep the chill from the old stone house.
I should have gone right away to the woodstore to get some old logs, but I was still thinking of R. Minto, and her friend in the bushes, and how Mam had been suspicious of them. Then Biffa came back with a big
