I Put a Spell on You (22 page)

We both stared in silence as Mum and her two companions laughed soundlessly and the handsome man put his arm round the pretty redhead.

“Why is this happening?” I said again. Once more the mirror darkened, then cleared. And once more we saw Mum walking down the track and the minibus driving past.

“Oh this is no bloody use,” I said. I let go of Esme’s hands and stood up, shutting my iPad case with a snap.

Esme looked puzzled.

“Why don’t you ring your mum?” she said. “Maybe she can shed some light on things.”

She stared into the mirror.

“I can’t understand it at all.”

Chapter 32

Mum wasn’t answering. I left a message on her voicemail asking her to call, then turned my attention to the mirror again.

Esme and I stared at the pictures, endlessly looping as the girl walked up the dusty track over and over. I squinted. It was definitely Mum, there was no doubt about that. The way she walked, as though she could break into a joyful run at any moment, and her striking blonde hair, were as familiar as my own reflection. But it was a Mum I only knew from photos. She was young – eighteen perhaps or nineteen. I wondered why the mirror was showing us such old pictures, nice as they were to see.

“How long will the pictures stay?” Esme asked.

“I have no idea,” I said, still watching Mum.

Esme picked up the iPad and took a photo of Mum walking down the dusty road. It wasn’t a brilliant image, given how shaky the mirror picture was, but it was good enough.

“Good idea,” I said to her. Then I spoke to the mirror again: “Show us the other picture.”

The picture of Mum fogged over and the one of her laughing with the redheaded girl and the handsome man reappeared.

Esme took another photo and showed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said. I was overwhelmed with disappointment. This was all bewildering. I couldn’t understand what Mum’s travels in India had to do with what was happening now.

I looked back at the mirror. The pictures were fading.

“I give up,” I said. “I’m completely out of ideas.” I threw myself on the sofa and closed my eyes.

“Where’s Jamie?” Esme said suddenly.

I opened one eye.

“Gym,” I said. “I saw him this morning.”

I was grumpy and fed up – Esme bore the brunt.

“Feeling guilty are you?” I said.

Esme sat down on the sofa too, squashing my feet. Irritated, I pulled them away.

“Guilty,” she said. “Oh yes. And annoyed that Jamie’s been out with the bloody rugby team and bloody Louise every spare minute. And…”

She paused. I opened both my eyes and looked at her.

“And what?”

“Confused,” she said. “A bit scared. Out of control.”

She pulled her hair over her right shoulder and gripped it in a fist, her knuckles white.

“When I’m near Xander, I don’t feel like me,” she said. “I tingle all over and it’s like someone else is controlling my actions.”

I felt a stirring of unease. I remembered the haze of magic that had hung over Xander and Esme that first day after Star had died. When she’d offered to teach him magic. The day it all started. Could Esme’s feelings for Xander be linked to this campaign against me? Could someone have cast a spell to make her fall for him?

“You need to spend some time with Jamie,” I said, hoping this whole thing really was just wedding nerves. “Proper time, not wedding arrangements time.”

“Exactly,” Esme said. “I thought if I knew where he was I could put on my blue dress – the one he likes – my favourite boots, and go down to surprise him. I’ll take him out for lunch and we can just have fun, like we used to. But I need to know where he is.”

I nodded towards the mirror. The pictures of Suky in India had faded but the surface of the glass still swirled and heaved and the air around it shimmered. The magic was still working.

“Go on then,” I said.

Esme knelt down on the floor and peered into the mirror.

“Show me Jamie,” she said.

I sat up. Could she do nothing right?

“Be more specific,” I said. “It might show us him thirty years ago.”

I slid off the sofa and sat on the floor beside Esme.

“Show us James Brodie, now,” I said.

There was a pause as the surface of the glass stilled, then it cleared and we saw Jamie standing in the reception area of his gym with his bag at his feet.

“Look at him,” Esme said in adoration. I looked. Jamie had dirty blond hair that needed a cut and he was wearing dark jeans and tan boots. I was very fond of him, but he did nothing for me. Obviously.

“He is so handsome and he’s mine,” said Esme. “Look at the smile. Those dimples make him look like a little boy.”

Jamie in the mirror was grinning at something, or someone, we couldn’t see.

“Oh bloody hell,” said Esme as we saw what he was grinning at. It was Louise. She came out of the ladies’ changing room, her short hair still wet from the shower. She was only wearing jeans, Converse and a leather jacket but she looked amazing; tall, lean, athletic. My heart thumped.

“Why is she there?” Esme said.

“They’re mates,” I said. “Just friends.”

But then, in horror, we both watched as Lou said something to Jamie and he laughed uproariously. Then he looped his arm round her neck and together they walked out of the gym.

Esme and I stared into the mirror. I wasn’t sure what we were seeing – were Jamie and Louise just friends or was there more there? It was hard to tell, actually, from what we’d seen.

“Well, that’s just peachy,” Esme said. “I’ve been feeling so guilty about kissing Xander and there’s Jamie, cuddling up to Louise, right in front of me.”

“Behind your back actually,” I pointed out.

Esme gave me a fierce look.

“It’s not great news for you either,” she said. “Didn’t you have the hots for Louise?”

“No,” I said. “Well, we do get on really well.”

I looked in the mirror again.

“At least I thought we did.”

Esme gave a hollow laugh.

“Obviously she was just flirting with you to get you to open up,” she said. “She probably does it all the time to witnesses. And suspects.”

In the mirror Louise and Jamie had left the gym and were walking down the hill towards home – my home – together. Arm in bloody arm and still laughing. Louise was so tall her head was level with Jamie’s. They looked good together.

“How dare they?” Esme said. “How dare Jamie cheat on me and then flaunt it?” Her face was red and her fists were clenched.

I got up from the floor and threw myself on the sofa again.

“I don’t care,” I said, even though I did care, so much, in fact, that I was surprised.

“I have had enough. I am just going to lie here, close my eyes, and try to forget about everything.”

And then there was a knock on the door. That was unusual as we normally buzzed people in from the main door downstairs, but occasionally visitors sneaked in as someone else was coming out.

I didn’t move. Nor did Esme.

“Ez,” I said. “Can you get that?”

I heard her sigh, then walk slowly to the front door. I wasn’t sure how the timing of the mirror’s pictures worked so I didn’t know if what I’d seen was ‘live’ so to speak or a while ago, so I was half-expecting Jamie to be there.

Curious, I pulled myself up and peered over the back of the sofa to the front door, watching as Esme – who was obviously expecting Jamie too – threw it open.

It was Xander. He stood in the doorway, handsome in his smart grey wool coat. He had a grey beanie pulled down over his curls and a green and white scarf round his neck.

Esme looked as though she’d never been so pleased to see anyone in her whole life. She stepped back to let him in and as he walked towards her, kicking the door shut behind him, a strange feeling descended on the flat. The air was filled with energy – I could almost feel my hair standing on end.

“Xander,” Esme said. And then she was wrapping her arms round his neck, kissing him hard, and crying.

Xander responded enthusiastically, pulling her close at first, then he peeled her from round his neck and held her at arm’s length.

I ducked down behind the sofa so he wouldn’t see me if he glanced in my direction.

“Whoa,” he said. “Not that I’m not very pleased with this welcome, but what’s going on here?”

Gently he wiped the tears from Esme’s cheek with his thumb.

She looked at him, then she picked up the ends of his scarf.

“You’re not a football fan,” she said. I wasn’t sure why she cared.

Xander looked confused.

“What? Oh the scarf? Found it on the bus.” He unwound it from his neck and shrugged off his coat, then he steered Esme towards the living room.

In a panic I threw myself off the sofa. In the corner of the room we had a folding screen – it wasn’t ours. It belonged to Jamie’s hedge-fund-manager friend who had bought it on one of his trips to Hong Kong before he moved there permanently. It annoyed me intensely most of the time because it blocked the light from the gorgeous big windows, but now I was grateful for it.

I slid behind the screen just as Esme and Xander came into the room, where the mirror still heaved and shuddered on the floor.

“What’s that?” Xander said, pushing Ez on the shoulders so she sat down on the sofa.

“That,” she said, plucking a tissue from the box on the coffee table and blowing her nose hard, “is the problem.”

Swiftly, she outlined my plan to try mirror divination and how we’d seen Mum in India.

“Just her mum?” Xander asked. His jaw was clenched.

“There were a couple of others,” Esme said. “I can’t remember really. We were mostly interested in Suky.”

For the first time, Esme realised I wasn’t in the room where she’d left me.

“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Harry was just here. She must have gone to call her mum again.”

“She doesn’t know why it might be relevant?”

“Not a clue,” Esme said. “Suky doesn’t talk about India much.”

Xander grinned at her suddenly.

“But that’s not what’s upset you?”

She shook her head.

“No,” she said. She told him about seeing Jamie and Louise together.

“I think he’s on his way home,” Esme said. I wondered what she would say to him when he arrived.

Xander looked into the mirror.

“He’ll be a while yet,” he said. “He’s just walking down from Queen Street.”

He took Esme’s hand. I felt uncomfortable. I’d already seen way too much of their relationship on the CCTV. I hoped I wasn’t about to get a live performance.

“So that’s all that was?” he said, rubbing his hand through his curly hair. “A rebound snog?”

“No!” Esme said. “Well, yes. But Xander, something happens to me when I’m around you. It’s like I can’t control myself, even though I know I should.”

Xander looked pleased.

“Should you?” he said. He leant over and kissed her on the neck. I groaned silently as I watched Esme shiver again, just like she had in Xander’s office.

“I should,” she whispered. “But I can’t.”

From my hiding place, it was hard to see Esme properly. She sort of looked like the surface of the mirror, heaving and molten. Shimmering. Either peeking round the screen made her look very odd indeed or there was magic here.

Esme’s lips found Xander’s again and they were kissing. This was awful – I had to stop them.

I tried to swoop into Esme’s head, urging her to think about what she was doing and stop it, but again I hit a wall. I couldn’t get in.

“Come on, Ez,” I thought, trying so hard I almost saw stars. “Come on, let me in.”

Nothing.

On the sofa, Esme and Xander’s lower bodies were chastely facing forward, while they pressed their chests together and wound their arms round each other. This couldn’t go on.

I waggled my fingers, and made one of the pictures on the wall fall and shatter onto the wooden floor, hoping it would interrupt their kissing, but they didn’t seem to hear it. It looked like I would have to let them know I was there.

I stood up and stepped round the screen, about to shout: “Esme!” when I heard voices on the stairs and a key in the lock. I froze, not knowing what to do, staring at Esme and Xander on the sofa as Jamie and Louise came in.

“Esme!” I said, as I’d planned, but it was too late. Jamie had seen everything.

Xander and Esme leapt apart as though they were hot. Esme blinked as though the living room was just coming back into focus. I stood in the doorway with Louise and Jamie behind me. Lou looked embarrassed and Jamie was white-faced and shaking.

Esme jumped up.

“Jamie,” she said, glancing from Xander to the mirror then back to Jamie’s pale face. “I didn’t think you’d be back yet.”

“Evidently,” he said.

Xander touched Esme’s arm and there was a strange whooshing sensation all around. She blinked again and rubbed her eyes, looking for all the world like she’d just woken up.

She looked at us all – at Jamie’s ashen face and Louise edging awkwardly towards the door – in bewilderment. She seemed not to understand how she’d got herself in that situation. Xander was standing behind Esme. He put his hand on her shoulder in what I thought was a slightly territorial gesture.

“Don’t touch her,” Jamie said, his voice cracking. “Don’t ever touch her.”

Chapter 33

I know this sounds strange, given everything that had happened recently, but the week that followed Jamie seeing Xander and Esme kissing was without a doubt one of the worst of my whole life.

I was exhausted and I’d never been so close to giving up as I was in those few days. I kept thinking about how joyful and carefree Mum looked in the mirror, walking down that track in India. I almost booked a flight, thinking of the warmth of the sun on my skin after an Edinburgh winter, and the chance to get away and leave all this angst behind me. Xander could look after the spa, I thought. He was fine with the business. Better than fine. He was almost better than me. That was one of the reasons I couldn’t leave. I sort of felt like he’d muscled his way into my life and taken it over. He’d taken on lots of my clients at work, he’d taken Esme and he’d even – I discovered – carried on ringing Mum even after I’d come home from Claddach. She was bewitched by him and sang his praises every time I spoke to him.