What Magic Is This? by Holly Bourne

First published in 2019 in Great Britain by Barrington Stoke Ltd 18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP www.barringtonstoke.co.uk Text © 2019 Holly Bourne The moral right of Holly Bourne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request ISBN: 978‑1‑78112‑885-5 Printed in China by Leo

To Lucy, No one else I’d rather cast a spell on a magic tree with

CHAPTER ONE

So telekinesis is totally harder than I thought it would be.

I stare at my eyeliner pencil on the carpet, squinting, using all my concentration to make it move.

Move, eyeliner pencil. Go on. Roll onto your side. You can do it. I believe in you.

My brain hurts and it feels like it’s about to pop a vein. But I keep going. I can sense a twitch coming. Surely the pencil must be about to move? I’ve been staring at it for ten minutes.

Come on. Just twitch. MOVE, YOU STUPID 1

EYELINER PENCIL. CAN’T YOU FEEL MY BULGING BRAIN VEIN WANTING IT SO? Yet the pencil stays still, determined not to move. I can’t believe it. I mean, I know it sounds a bit up myself, but I’ve always assumed, ever since reading Matilda, that I totally have the power to move objects with my mind. And that the only reason I haven’t done it yet is because I’ve never given telekinesis the proper time and attention.

But here I am, on the night of a Super Blood Wolf Moon, dressed up like a sexy Wiccan. I’m ready to finally embrace my natural witchness, but … my inner witch is not obeying. This is quite annoying and actually doesn’t bode well for everything I have planned for this evening.

The doorbell rings, echoing around the house.

I hear Mum call, “I’ll get it!” and I let her. One more try …

2

I stare at the eyeliner again.

Move … just move … come on, you big fat eyeliner pencil. Just roll a bit …

I hear voices and greetings and the thud of someone running up the stairs, but I stay focused. Squinting … wishing …

My bedroom door flies open just as the eyeliner rolls over slightly.

OH MY GOD! I DID IT! I DID IT! I snatch it up triumphantly and turn to Mia, who’s standing in the doorway, looking like a Goth queen. There isn’t much of her face that’s not covered in eyeliner.

“I just made this pencil move,” I tell her.

“With my brain! I have telekinesis!” I wave the eyeliner over my head.

“Seriously?” Mia says, and raises an eyebrow, grinning.

“I think so! I’ve been practising all day and 3

it just suddenly rolled right then …” I pause and suck on the end of the pencil. “Or it might have been the gust of wind from the door opening that moved it …”

“Let’s be honest, Sophia,” Mia says. “It was most definitely that.”

Mia strides in and dumps all her sleepover gear onto my bed. Her bag makes a rather worrying clanking sound as it lands on my purple duvet, like she’s got multiple kitchen sinks in there.

“Hey, it may very well be the case that I’m an actual witch!” I tell her.

“Well, we’ll know after tonight, won’t we?”

Mia replies.

She starts emptying her bag of its contents – getting out loads of candles, a ball of wool and a bunch of red roses. I get up from the carpet to look at her spoils and I pick up one of the roses.

4

“Thanks for getting me the rose I needed,” I say. “Were they expensive?”

Mia points and winks at me. “They were down to only three quid in Tesco. I think they’re about to die.”

“Won’t an almost dead rose tarnish the magic?” I ask.

“They’re not dead yet. We only need them for tonight.”

I hear Mum’s footsteps on the stairs.

“Sophia?” Mum’s voice warbles. Mia and I look at each other in fear, and then to the bed, and then back to each other again.

“Quick,” I whisper. “Hide the weird stuff.”

Mia tugs my childhood blankie off the bed and drapes it over her witchcraft collection just as Mum pushes into my room.

“Mum, you didn’t knock!” I complain.

She ignores my protest. “What the hell 5

have both of you done to your faces?” Mum asks, taking in our insane amount of make‑up.

Mia and I both start snorting with laughter.

“We’re just experimenting,” I say. “Trying out new looks.”

Mum clips an earring onto her ear, still frowning. “I thought the point of a new look was to make you look better?” she says. “Not worse.

You look like you’ve punched yourself in both eyes.”

Cheers, Mum, I think. I twist my head to check myself in my mirror. I spent ages on this smoky‑eye look. I even watched a YouTube tutorial to make sure I got it right. And my wrist hurts from all the blending I had to do.

“I think we look cool,” Mia says, beaming back at her. Mum’s eyes shift to Mia’s long sleeves bunched over her hands. Mum bites her lip and clips on her other earring. I wonder if 6

she’s noticed Mia’s new obsession with never showing her arms, but Mum doesn’t comment.

“Yes, well …” Mum says. “Anyway, Sophia, there are some pizzas in the freezer for you guys. And I got some dips and crisps like you asked for.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Don’t be too noisy, otherwise Ken next door will get upset.”

“We won’t.”

“That means the TV can’t go over twenty‑five.”

“I know.”

“And call me if anything happens …”

Mum’s eyes flick to Mia’s covered arms again.

“Anything at all.”

“Mum, we’re just watching movies and then sleeping,” I reassure her, while thinking, And dabbling with witchcraft using spells we found on Google. “We won’t be noisy.”

7

“Hmm. OK. Well, still. Call. Any doubt, just call. I’ll be back by ten tomorrow.”

Mum leans in for a kiss, suffocating me with her perfume. I hope it wears off by the time she gets to the date that she’s hiding from me. “Just having dinner at Sandra’s,” she told me. Yeah right. Not that I blame Mum for wanting to find someone new. It’s been almost a year now. But, God, what does it mean if your tragic mother’s love life is going better than yours? She’s old and mental, while I’m in the prime of my youth.

And I’m the one having to turn to magic to get a boyfriend.

I peck the air next to Mum’s neck and wave her out of my room. We hear her collect her overnight bag, call goodbye up the stairs and then the click of the front door.

“Your mum out on another secret date?” Mia asks.

8

“She thinks I’m so stupid.”

“How do you feel about it?”

I shrug. I don’t really want to talk about it.

“I feel like we can get the ingredients back out now,” I say, lifting blankie off them.

Mia decides not to push it and screws up her face instead. “Did you just call them ‘ingredients’?”

“Yeah. What else are we supposed to call them?”

“I don’t know,” Mia says. “But not ingredients. We’re making spells, not a fish pie.

You need to take it seriously.”

I raise both eyebrows. “I am.”

“Good. Otherwise the magic won’t work.”

I reach over and gently poke her. “Mia, I’m taking it seriously, I pro—” I break off as the doorbell goes. “That will be Alexis. I’ll go let her in.” I scramble off the bed and pad downstairs.

9

When I’m halfway down, Mia calls out, “I hope you’re not going to waste our evening of magic on trying to win back Aidan.”

I hold my hand to my heart at the mention of his name. Aidan, Aidan, Aidan. I’m addicted to hearing it. I close my eyes and feel the humiliation and pain and rejection bombard in.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” I call back, brushing aside my feelings.

The doorbell trills again.

“Let me in,” Alexis yells into the letterbox.

“I’m so cold I’m scared Hell has actually frozen over and now loads of weird stuff is going to happen out here. It’s not safe.”

I force a smile onto my face and let in the last member of our coven.

10