Acting Up Page 8

‘I’ll join you soon, Dad. I just … I have to go in there.’ I winced as I heard something else being broken inside. ‘Wish me luck.’

  He let out a weary sigh and threw his leg back over his broom. ‘There’s no amount of luck in the world that could convince me to get between those two. But I’ll wish you luck anyway.’ He gave me a quick kiss and kicked off the ground. ‘I’ll have a drink waiting for you, love – you’ll need it.’

  ≈

  ‘It was my decision to make!’ Christine screamed as I entered through the back door. She was clutching Queenie, her familiar, to her chest, her hair dishevelled and her eyes wide. ‘It was about her. She had a right to know.’

  ‘Have you learned nothing I taught you?’ Cassandra’s hair was equally dishevelled, and her expression was just as wild. There were centuries between she and Christine, and yet the biggest difference between the two was that Cassandra’s eyes were blue, whereas Christine’s were green. If I had to look at them and Melissa in a dimly lit room, I’m not sure I would have been able to pick out who was who. ‘There’s a reason why witches should leave the business of the future to vampires. You haven’t lived long enough to understand.’ She picked up a veiny crystal ball and smashed it to the floor. ‘You don’t deserve these things. Christine!’

  Now that I was in the kitchen, I could see that every broken item belonged to Christine. Some of her favourite scrying bowls lay shattered on the floor, while yet another of her crystal balls was being hurled through the air.

  ‘I don’t see what the problem is!’ Christine screeched. ‘It’s coming to pass. All of it. There was a murder today just like the one I showed Wanda. Well … almost like. It’s confusing, to be honest. But I–’

  ‘Ahem.’ I stepped further into the room. ‘Ahem!’ I said again, far more loudly the second time.

  ‘Wanda,’ said Christine, an embarrassed expression on her face. ‘I thought you weren’t coming to dinner.’

  I pulled out a dining chair. All of the dinner dishes were still laid out, and I could see that my mother’s three bean stew had been abandoned about half way through. No one began a bowl of her three bean stew without finishing. There was an enormous uneaten apple tart in the centre of the table, and a jug of freshly-squeezed orange juice sitting next to it. It was like the Mary Celeste in here. Hey – maybe that was the answer to the mystery of the abandoned ship. Cassandra had rolled up for an argument and scared everyone away. She was old enough to have been the culprit.

  I helped myself to a slice of the tart and began to eat. ‘I said I’d be here for dessert. And here I am. For dessert.’ I smiled through a mouthful of food. ‘I can see you two are having a lovely catch-up, but maybe you could catch me up. Seeing as it’s my prophecy you’re both arguing about.’

  Christine sank into a chair by the unlit stove, and her familiar curled up on her lap. Cassandra sat directly across from me. ‘You’ve grown since I saw you last,’ she said. ‘Do you remember me?’

  ‘Uh huh. You’re a hard lady to forget.’

  She smiled. ‘So I’ve been told. But seeing as I’ve heard Melissa accidentally tampered with your memories, I wasn’t sure if that was the case.’

  ‘That’s fixed,’ I said, cutting myself a second slice. As I worked my way through it (with a great deal of gusto) I realised I’d lied to Nan. There was a better bakery in town. It just wasn’t open to the public. But if my mother did ever put her baked goods up for sale, Nan would have some stiff competition on her hands. ‘So how come you worked as Gabriel Godbody’s seer all those years, anyway? The guy was a major psycho. What did he have on you?’

  She beamed at me. ‘Straight to the point. Just like the last true Wayfarer. And yes, he did have something on me. My family, to be precise. Christine was of interest to him, but Melissa even more so. Another seer had told him she was soon to be born, and told him what she’d be able to do. Her ability to harness her witch and vampire abilities – especially seeing as I’m quite far back in the family tree – was exactly the reason why Gabriel would have targeted her. I agreed to tell him one or two of my visions in return for her safety.’

  I couldn’t return her smile. ‘But he didn’t leave Melisa alone. The Dark Team tried to recruit her.’

  She cast a look in Christine’s direction. ‘So I’ve heard. Just. I wish I could say it surprised me, but it sounds just like the Gabriel I knew and loathed. Even so … I didn’t sell you out, Wanda.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ I challenged. ‘You told him I’d be the perfect match for his creepy son, and that we’d have the best super-hybrid babies ever. Without your dumb prophecy Gabriel never would have dosed me up with love potion all those months. Or kidnapped me and my friends and family. Put all of our lives in danger. Not to mention actually killing quite a lot of people along the way.’

  She heaved her shoulders, suddenly looking her age (well, not quite, but a little older than usual). ‘I know what happened. It was always going to happen, whether I told him or not. Wanda … seeing the future doesn’t equate to making the future. And telling someone what you saw doesn’t always equate to creating some self-fulfilling prophecy situation. In the case of what I told Gabriel, I wasn’t the only seer he used. But I was his favourite. And the one he was most likely to trust. Had I not told him, someone else would have. I’ve seen a thousand versions of your life, and I’m afraid to say … they’re all the same. No matter what happens, you wind up in the same place. Your future is inevitable.’

  I pushed my empty plate away. Sure, I was contemplating a third slice. But maybe I’d have it when I wasn’t quite so irritated and confused. ‘You and Christine seem to agree on that much, anyway. So in that case, why in Hecate’s name are you destroying all of her scrying tools? It’s a little on the impolite side, don’t you think? You’re a guest in our coven’s house, after all.’

  She let out a weak laugh. ‘Yes. You’re right. And I’ll put it all back together or buy Christine’s some better equipment. Whichever she chooses. But I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was angry with you, Chrissie.’ She cast a look towards Christine’s armchair. ‘And you know why.’

  Christine stood up, still hugging Queenie to her chest, and sat down next to me. ‘Granny isn’t annoyed because I told you. She’s angry because I told you at the wrong time. Apparently, today was supposed to be the day she told you your future. She thinks I jumped the wand and messed things up.’

  I sipped at my juice. ‘Well … you kind of did. Today is the first day anything you showed me actually happened. Although I don’t see what difference it would have made.’

  Cassandra poured herself some wine and crossed her legs. As always, she reminded me of an ancient warrior rather than a vampire. Her arms were covered with tattooed symbols, and she wore a long bronze dress that split at the thighs, giving her freedom of movement. Her blue eyes shone fiercely as she spoke. ‘I taught Chrissie to wait for the right moment. The moment when the subject is ready to hear the truth.’ She drained her glass in a couple of gulps and set it down with a gasp. ‘And it has nothing to do with playing nicey-nicey. It has to do with the universe, and its deadly sense of humour. Wanda, you were at the scene of a murder today. But the body wasn’t the body you were expecting to find, was it?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘It looked the same. But the other visions Christine showed me made me think it would be Mandy Parker. Instead, it was her body double.’

  Cassandra nodded slowly, looking troubled. ‘Just as I thought.’ She turned to Christine. ‘You should have consulted me, Chrissie. You know that chaos is a very real thing, my love.’

  Christine laughed wryly. ‘Everyone in Riddler’s Cove knows all about chaos, thank you very much. But no. I never believed your theories, Granny. And I still don’t. Wanda might have expected to see Mandy Parker today, but that was just an assumption. Everything from the vision was spot on.’

  Cassandra arched a brow in my direction. ‘Was it?’

  ‘It seemed so,’ I said. ‘Felix looked exact
ly like Mandy today. Everything played out just as I thought it would. Except …’

  Cassandra placed her arms on the table, looking intently at me. ‘Except that it felt like the ground was shifting beneath your feet, quite literally? And you felt dizzy for a long time afterwards?’

  I swallowed. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because that’s how it feels when the universe has decided to tell an incredibly big joke. Wheels need to be set in motion at the right time, Wanda. And Chrissie was trained to know when that time is. Either she forgot her training, or she wilfully ignored it. The result is the same. She told you before you were ready. Ever since, you’ve been waiting and waiting. All of your actions, all of your thoughts, everything about you has been different than it would have been otherwise. And when someone as important to the world as you is behaving out of sorts, it has an effect. A great big knock-on. The world has its plan for you, Wanda. And it doesn’t want you to be two steps ahead.’

  ‘So … you think Mandy Parker was supposed to be murdered?’

  Cassandra poured another glass of wine, passing this one to me. ‘I know it.’

  ‘But … you said that you looked at a gazillion versions of my future and that they all turned out the same, no matter what.’

  Cassandra sighed. ‘Usually they do. I knew, for example, that no matter whether or not I told Gabriel Godbody the Twentieth about your potential, that you were going to be his downfall. I knew you’d be the first person to defeat the Dark Team. But I didn’t know quite how. Once I did tell him, a spark leapt from the fire and showed me how it would play out. It became a certainty.’

  I thought back to what I’d seen in Christine’s scrying bowl. Towards the end of her conversation with Gabriel senior, Cassandra had looked at a spark on the rug and smiled.

  ‘So what’s certain now? Is Mandy going to die?’

  ‘I don’t know, my dear. It was always your end point I concentrated on – you know, the moment when you save the world.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Just another day at the office, then.’

  She chuckled. ‘Well … Mandy’s death was always just a step along that road. The end game remains the same. But does Mandy die in this new version which my Chrissie has stupidly brought about? I need to scry upon it – and possibly with you by my side to help me concentrate. A fire should do, I think.’

  I glanced at Christine. I’d been fuming with her ever since she broke into my room and forced me to look at her visions of my future. But having to sit here while Cassandra tore her a new one wasn’t exactly fun. Christine was a second mother to me. I loved her.

  ‘Y’know, I think you should sort out the mess you made in our coven’s house, first. And maybe apologise to Christine for being such a cow. She made a mistake, Cassandra. Maybe if you’d been around more to teach her, instead of working as the personal psychic for the criminal underworld, then she might have been better prepared.’

  For a few seconds, the vampire’s face turned thunderous. Eventually she relaxed and said, ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I am? I mean, I know I am. I just didn’t think you knew I was.’

  She smiled at me, and then came over to our side of the table and drew Christine into a hug. ‘I stayed away to keep you and Melissa safe, Chrissie. It was part of my agreement with Gabriel. He told me he’d agree not to recruit Melissa as long as I didn’t train the two of you to be powerful enough to thwart him. But I should have found a way. And more importantly, I should have seen this coming. I mean, if anyone should have predicted you’d tell Wanda before the time was right, then it ought to have been your psychic granny.’

  ‘Great great great great great–’

  Cassandra put a finger to Christine’s lips. ‘Yes, we all know I’m ancient. Let’s not rub it in. I’ll clean up the mess I made, and then I’ll light a fire. We’ll soon see if Mandy gets to live.’

  I took a sip of the wine Cassandra had poured for me, groaning. ‘You were serious about the fire? Can’t we, I dunno, look into a nice bath of ice water instead? I mean, we are in the middle of a heatwave.’

  ‘Heatwave?’ Cassandra shook her head, a look of bewilderment on her face. ‘You Irish are so strange. This weather is practically chilly, my dear.’

  ≈

  We used the open fireplace in the living room at Wayfarers’ Rest. It was hardly ever lit, and definitely not in late July. I did a spell to make sure there were no birds’ nests to disturb before we began.

  Cassandra and Christine stared into the flames together, presumably seeing something, while I … well, I sweated. After an hour of sweating, I went up to my old bedroom and pulled out some shorts and a tank top and changed into them before returning downstairs to sweat some more.

  They mumbled amongst themselves, freezing visions and comparing them before throwing them back into the flames. Eventually they found one they agreed upon. I could tell that they agreed because they were arguing slightly less than usual.

  ‘It’s a big one,’ said Christine.

  ‘It’s not a big one, but it’s the biggest we’re going to find tonight,’ her great-many-times grandmother pointed out. ‘Oh, let’s just show her then, before she melts onto the floor beside us.’

  They did something mysterious with the fire, pulling at the air around it and mumbling until the flames turned blue. As the colour of the fire continued to lighten, Christine kept on grabbing at the air until a small, snowflake-shaped ice-cube began to form. She palmed it and threw it into a waiting scrying bowl.

  ‘Come look, Wanda. Every time we try to concentrate on Mandy, this is the vision that appears most often. It has to be connected.’

  I looked into the bowl, expecting something amazing. Instead, I saw a masked figure, standing in front of a mirror and reading from a script. The mask looked a little like one of those comedy tragedy thingies. It was black on one side, white on the other, with one side smiling and the other frowning. The person in the mask was wavering in and out, so that it was impossible to tell whether they were a man or a woman. And their voice had an odd, other-worldliness about it.

  It faded away, and Christine sighed. ‘I know what you’re going to say, Granny. But you saw it in the flames, too. You know it’s connected to Mandy Parker.’

  Cassandra smiled tightly. ‘It’s connected all right. But how?’ She took my hand in hers. ‘I’m sorry, Wanda. We’ve tried our best. But we can’t home in on Mandy any more than this. Let’s just hope the poor girl is safe.’

  I sat back, fanning myself with a nearby magazine. ‘I’m going to have to tell Finn about this. If you’re sure Mandy was definitely supposed to die, Cassandra, then she could still be in danger. We’ll need to put a guard on her.’

  Christine winced. ‘Okay. But when you are telling Finn, can you leave out the bit where I was an idiot?’

  ‘Finn won’t think you’re an idiot,’ I said. ‘But can I ask you two something?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘Can you keep your scrying concentrated on Mandy and the Be My Witch cast and crew, please? As far as this whole prophecy thing goes … I think we all know now that it’s not a good idea for me to try and get ahead of it.’ I drew Christine into a hug. ‘But I appreciate you wanting to. I love you. Okay?’

  She rested her head on my shoulders. ‘Love you too, kiddo.’

  11. Prince Charming

  By the time we finished by the fire and I changed my outfit, Finn, my mam and dad had left Three Witches Brew. My parents had moved on to the dance at the community hall, and Finn had gone off home to get changed, but promised he’d be back soon.

  I might have missed the ceremonial part of the Lughnasadh dance (fruity offerings to deities and a few couples jumping over the broom together) but at least I got to watch Will Berry canoodling with the as-yet alive Mandy Parker. Did that sound sarcastic?

  Considering he had told her he felt fit to strangle her quite recently, they certainly seemed to be getting along well. Mandy was giggling as Will kissed her neck. She w
as drinking from a pink champagne flute, but she put it down and turned to him, pulling him in for a deep, passionate kiss.

  Something in my stomach leapt, and it wasn’t a butterfly. More like a jealous little gremlin. I could see one or two other people at Will and Mandy’s table who looked less than happy for them, though, so at least I wasn’t alone. The whole of the Be My Witch crew seemed to be on a night out. Either they were jealous of Mandy’s hot-pink champagne flute, or else they didn’t like her nearly as much as they said. I knew which I’d bet my money on.

  I tried to turn to my coven for some cheer-up conversation, but they were all just as coupled-up. My mother was dragging my dad onto the floor for a dance. Christine was by the snack table, feeding canapés to her boyfriend, Kevin. Ronnie was in a dark corner with Arthur Albright, having what looked like a truly flirtatious conversation. And Melissa … well, she was staring up at the stage at her gorgeous boyfriend, the lead singer with the night’s entertainment.

  To my utter shock and horror, Lassie was sitting in the throne Callum Cool had set up at the side of the stage. She had managed to turn in her seat so that she wasn’t staring at him while he banged his drums, but that didn’t make it much better. As I caught her eye, she gave me a look that said she was more disappointed in herself than I could ever be.

  Callum, of course, was oblivious to the effect he was having on Lassie. He wore his usual confident expression, licking his lips as he looked her way, giving her a cocky smile.

  ‘They seem to have gotten over their differences.’ Bruno sidled up next to me, pointing at Will and Mandy as they canoodled. ‘I’m not sure whether to be relieved or worried. He’s clearly not a suspect, then?’

  I sipped at my glass of lemonade, wondering if it might be time to switch to something stronger. ‘I can’t really tell you about an ongoing investigation, Bruno.’

  ‘Not even when the safety of everyone on my set is at stake?’ The director looked more than a little annoyed. Luckily, an enormous distraction was just about to take place – one that a man who loved drama as much as Bruno did could never ignore.