sees him in the mirror. ‘Get out!’ She rounds on him, screaming like a virago. ‘Toad! Contemptible little sneak! Creeping in here, spying on me – how dare you! How dare you! Get out, do you hear? If I see even your shadow again, I’ll – I’ll squeeze you to pulp – I’ll blast you into Limbo – I’ll blow your atoms to the four winds! Don’t you ever – ever! – come near me again!’ The unleashing of power is sudden and terrifying: her hair crackles with it, the air thickens around her outstretched fingers. The goblin vanishes in a flash of startled horror. She is on her feet now but her rage ebbs as rapidly as it came, and she casts herself face down on the bed, clutching the pillow, sobbing briefly and violently. When the storm is over she lifts her head; she is red-eyed and tearless, as if tears were a rain that would not come. Her expression reverts to a wary stillness: her gaze roves round the room. ‘It’s gone,’ she murmurs, ‘I know it’s gone, but … there’s someone … somewhere … Watching me.’
‘She feels us,’ says Sysselore. ‘The power. Did you see the power in her…?’
‘Hush.’
The picture revolves cautiously as I lean forward, close to the smoke; the fire-draught burns my face. I am peering out of the mirror, into the room, absorbing every detail, filling my mind with the girl. This girl. The one I have waited for.
Slowly she turns, drawn back to the mirror, staring beyond the reflections. Our eyes meet. For the second time, the watcher becomes the watched. But this is no threat, only reconnaissance. A greeting. In the mirror, she sees me smile.
She snatches something – a hairbrush? – and hurls it at the glass, which shatters. The smoke turns all to silver splinters, spinning, falling, fading. In the gloom after the fire dies, Sysselore and I nurse our exultation.
She is the one. At last.
I will have her.
Now we search the smoke for her, skimming other visions, bending our dual will to a single task. But the fire-magic is wayward and unpredictable: it may sometimes be guided but it cannot be forced. The images unravel before us in a jumble, distorted by our pressure, quick-changing, wavering, breaking up. Irrelevancies intrude, a cavalcade of monsters from the long-lost past, mermaid, unicorn, Sea Serpent, interspersed with glimpses which might, or might not, be more significant: the hatchling perching on a dark, long-fingered hand, a solitary flower opening suddenly in a withered garden like the unlidding of a watching eye. Time here has no meaning, but in the world beyond Time passes, years maybe, ere we see her again. And the vision, when it comes, takes us off guard, a broad vista unwinding slowly in an interlude of distraction, a road that meanders with the contours of the land, white puffball clouds trailing in the wake of a spring breeze. A horseless car is travelling along the road: the sunlight winks off its steel-green coachwork. The roof is folded back to leave the top open; music emanates from a mechanical device within, not the raucous drumbeat of the rabble but a music of deep notes and mellow harmonies, flowing like the hills. The girl is driving the car. She looks different, older, her small-boned face hollowed into shape, tapering, purity giving way to definition, a slight pixie-look tempered by the familiar gravitas. More than ever, it is a face of secrets. Her hair is cut in a straight line across her brow and on level with her jaw. As the car accelerates the wind fans it out from her temples and sweeps back her fringe, revealing that irregularity of growth at the parting that we call the Witch’s Crook. Her mouth does not smile. Her companion – another girl – is of no importance. I resist the urge to look too closely, chary of alarming her, plucking Sysselore away from the smoke and letting the picture haze over.
When we need her, we will find her. I know that now.
We must be ready.
She felt it only for an instant, like a cold prickling on the back of her neck: the awareness that she was being watched. Not watched in the ordinary sense or even spied on, but surveyed through occult eyes, her image dancing in a flame or refracted through a crystal prism. She didn’t know how she knew, only that it was one of many instincts lurking in the substratum of her mind, waiting their moment to nudge at her thought. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. The sensation was gone so quickly she almost believed she might have imagined it, but her pleasure in the drive was over. For her, Yorkshire would always be haunted. ‘Fern –’ her companion was talking to her, but she had not registered a word ‘– Fern, are you listening to me?’
‘Yes. Sorry. What did you say?’
‘If you’d been listening you wouldn’t have to ask. I never saw you so abstracted. I was just wondering why you should want to do the deed in Yarrowdale, when you don’t even like the place.’
‘I don’t dislike it: it isn’t that. It’s a tiny village miles from anywhere: short stroll to a windswept beach, short scramble to a windswept moor. You can freeze your bum off in the North Sea or go for bracing walks in frightful weather. The countryside is scenic – if you like the countryside. I’m a city girl.’
‘I know. So why –?’
‘Marcus, of course. He thinks Yarrowdale is quaint. Characterful village church, friendly local vicar. Anyway, it’s a good excuse not to have so many guests. You tell people you’re doing it quietly, in the country, and they aren’t offended not to be invited. And of those you do invite, lots of them won’t come. It’s too far to trek just to stay in a draughty pub and drink champagne in the rain.’
‘Sounds like a song,’ said Gaynor Mobberley. ‘Champagne in the rain.’ And: ‘Why do you always do what Marcus wants?’
‘I’m going to marry him,’ Fern retorted. ‘I want to please him. Naturally.’
‘If you were in love with him,’ said Gaynor, ‘you wouldn’t be half so conscientious about pleasing him all the time.’
‘That’s a horrible thing to say.’
‘Maybe. Best friends have a special licence to say horrible things, if it’s really necessary.’
‘I like him,’ Fern said after a long pause. ‘That’s much more important than love.’
‘I like him too. He’s clever and witty and very good company and quite attractive considering he’s going a bit thin on top. That doesn’t mean I want to marry him. Besides, he’s twenty years older than you.’
‘Eighteen. I prefer older men. With the young ones you don’t know what they’ll look like when they hit forty. It could be a nasty shock. The older men have passed the danger point so you know the worst already.’
‘Now you’re being frivolous. I just don’t understand why you can’t wait until you fall in love with someone.’
Fern gave a shivery laugh. ‘That’s like … oh, waiting for a shooting star to fall in your lap, or looking for the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow.’
‘Cynic.’
‘No. I’m not a cynic. It’s simply that I accept the impossibility of romantic idealism.’
‘Do you remember that time in Wales?’ said her friend, harking back unfairly to college days. ‘Morwenna Rhys gave that party at her parents’ house on the bay, and we all got totally drunk, and you rushed down the beach in your best dress straight into the sea. I can still
