Dark Spell Read Online Free

wicks. Rose and Bessie sat very still so they wouldn’t distract her.
    Callie stared, frowning, at the candles. After a few seconds, wisps of smoke came from the wicks, then tiny, buttercup-yellow flames that grew and steadied.
    “Good girl!” exclaimed Bessie.
    “Now the net, Callie,” Rose urged her. “Remember what to do?”
    Callie nodded and, standing, reached for the tips of the candle flames and drew them up, longer and longer, strands of living flame that somehow didn’t burn her. She twitched her fingers and twisted the flames together into a shining filament, then, tongue poking out as she concentrated, waggled her hands as though she was playing with an invisible cat’s cradle.
    The filament became a net the size of a mixing bowl, suspended between her hands.
    “That’s it…” Rose said encouragingly as Callie prepared to flick the net of light over the teapot.
    For the first couple of weeks she hadn’t been able to do any of this. When she tried to control the tingling, the lights would flicker or the radio would howl with interference, but nothing more. She remembered how astonished, how elated she’d been the first time she managed to focus her power on a candle and saw the wick bloom into a flame.
    It was all going so well.
    But in remembering, she’d let her concentration waver for a second and the flame forgot it couldn’tburn her. She gave a yelp of pain and yanked her hand away from the net, which detonated with a
snap
and a whoosh of sizzling air.
    There was a
crack
and the spout fell off the teapot.
    They stared at it sadly.
    “I’m sorry,” said Callie indistinctly, sucking a burned knuckle.
    Rose tried not to show her frustration with her granddaughter’s failed attempt at this simple piece of magic.
    “Ach, don’t worry, Callie. I can soon mend that,” Bessie reassured her.
    “With magic?” Callie asked, brightening at the possibility that witchcraft might actually be some use.
    “Dear me, no,” said Bessie, rummaging in a drawer. She produced a small tube and held it up triumphantly. “With superglue.”
    “I’m never going to be able to do any of this properly,” said Callie gloomily. “I’m not even sure I
want
to. What’s the point of all this stuff with the net? I didn’t ask to be a witch. I’d rather just be normal. Surely if I don’t use whatever power I’ve got, it’ll just… fade away or something?”
    Rose sighed. “I keep telling you it doesn’t work like that. Untrained power can be very dangerous. Even if you choose never to use it, you have to be able to control it.”
    “Mum says if I ignore it, it’ll go away.”
    Bessie looked sideways at Rose, then concentrated very hard on glueing the teapot.
    “I wouldn’t pay too much heed to your mother as anauthority on witchcraft,” Rose said in a tight voice. The two of them were barely on speaking terms because of what was going on.
    She shook her head as if to clear it. “Let’s stop for today. We’ve been at it for over an hour anyway. You
are
getting better, Callie. You just need to let your power flow more freely. Don’t worry, it’s hard for everyone at first.”
    “I had to give up cooking for two months when I was learning,” Bessie interjected. “Everything I made came out smelling of wet dog. I still have no idea why.”
    “I never knew that,” said Rose, trying to hide a smile.
    Bessie sniffed haughtily and put the repaired teapot down gently. “It’s not something I like to dwell on. My brother teased me about it for months. Barking Bess, he used to call me. Before I turned him into a slug.”
    Callie looked at Bessie, wide-eyed.
    “Och, I’m joking dear. It’s no challenge fooling you; you need to try a bit harder not to believe everything I tell you!”
    Callie gave an uneasy laugh. She was never quite sure about Bessie…
    Rose stood up. “We’d better head off before we break anything else.”
    “Sorry about your teapot, Mrs Dunlop.”
    “Bessie,” said Bessie.