The Witch’s Kiss Trilogy

Jack was still refusing to talk to them most of the time. He did become a little more communicative on the third night, though, when Leo offered him some cold roast chicken that had been left over from dinner. Jack ate the chicken rapidly, watching them the whole time.

‘I know you don’t trust us,’ Merry tried again, ‘and I know you don’t remember much. I know you don’t believe anyone can defeat Gwydion. But surely there must be some questions you want to ask, even if you won’t answer ours?’

Jack ate the last piece of chicken and licked his fingers. ‘Very well. Why is it that I seem to recognise you?’

Merry had been thinking about this one. ‘I reckon that you’re confusing me with Meredith. She was a witch, and I’m … related to her. She tried to stop Gwydion. She put you to sleep.’

‘And is this man your betrothed?’ Jack gestured towards Leo.

‘Leo? Ew – no. I told you last time: he’s my brother. And before you ask again, he’s not a wizard. But I’m a witch. Well … sort of a witch, anyway. My turn to ask you a question now. Do you recognise this place?’

Jack shook his head. ‘I remember someone putting something on my eyelids – this Meredith you speak of, perhaps – and I remember falling asleep. We were in Gwydion’s underground hall, one of the rooms he built beneath his tower.’ He closed his eyes, frowning. ‘The tower was hidden by a dark, thorny hedge, that was—’ he opened his eyes, again shaking his head. ‘Somewhere in the kingdom. I’ve forgotten. The hall is still there, under the lake, but where the lake came from, or where the kingdom has gone …’ He gestured at the surrounding countryside. ‘There should be forests of trees, high hills. But instead, almost everything I see is wrong: the garments you wear, the buildings, the sounds.’

‘Well …’ Merry trailed off, unsure how to begin to explain the twenty-first century. ‘How come you know how to speak modern English? I mean, how come you can understand us?’

Jack sighed.

‘I do not know, any more than I know the wizard’s purposes, or how you are able to hold me here against his will, and the will of the curse that is upon me. Can you explain it to me?’

‘No. I don’t understand how the magic works either.’

‘Then, even if you are what you claim to be, how will you help me?’

Merry didn’t reply.

Help you? I think I’m supposed to kill you. And I don’t even know how to do that.

Jack turned his back, and spoke no more to them that night.

* * *

‘Meredith Cooper! Is there any hope that you might actually pay attention, given it’s your future we’re discussing?’

Merry flinched and dropped her pencil. It was late Thursday afternoon, just over a week since she and Leo had first gone down to the lake and watched Jack leap out of the surging waters. The stress – and the lack of sleep – were getting to her.

‘Um …’

What was she talking about? University choices? Or … degree subjects?

She glanced down at the paper in front of her. No help there: she’d been writing a list of possible ways under the lake (‘ask Gran re water spells’) and sketching pictures of Jack’s face.

‘Well, really.’ Miss Riley – art teacher, careers adviser and all-round supervillain – rolled her eyes for good measure. ‘Your careers assessment form, Meredith. It was meant to be completed three weeks ago.’ She smiled maliciously at the rest of the class. ‘Ever since you rescued that boy from the river, you seem to have decided that deadlines don’t apply to you. I can assure you that is not the case. Surely you have some aims?’

Merry bit back a retort. Her List of Possible Things To Do With My Life had been completely blank for months. And now it was worse: when she tried to imagine her future all she saw was a tunnel, completely dark, with no light at the end.

I’m not sure it even is a tunnel. Maybe it’s just a cave. A dead end. Literally.

Filling in a stupid spreadsheet wasn’t going to change anything. But she didn’t have the energy to argue. ‘Sorry, Miss Riley. I’ll bring it in tomorrow.’

Finally, the bell rang and she could go home. Merry avoided Ruby. She knew her friend was going to ask her to go shopping, but Merry just wanted to wallow in the bath – and in self-pity – and hope the manuscript didn’t summon her to the lake. Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to avoid Gran: her bright red Mini was parked right outside the school. Merry got in.

Gran didn’t waste any time. ‘How are the spells going?’

‘Not … great. I gave myself a paper cut and couldn’t fix it. The sleeping potion I concocted just made me feel sick.’

‘And the witch fire? It’s such a useful spell. Show me how far you’ve got.’

‘What, right now? In the car? While you’re driving?’ Merry clutched at her seatbelt as Gran sped round a corner, apparently oblivious to the rain and the general lack of visibility. ‘What if it goes wrong?’

‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

Merry sighed.

Creating a massive fireball that consumes the car and everything within a ten-metre radius? Would that be the worst?

But – on the basis that nothing had happened the first ten times she’d tried this spell – she brought her palms close together, closed her eyes and concentrated, murmuring the incantation, listing all the different types of fire, but imagining the violet flames too …

Her hands felt warm. Between her fingers hovered a small, very faint, globe of blue-purple light. Merry shrieked and the globe disappeared.

Gran smiled as she pulled up in front of Merry’s house. ‘Don’t look so surprised, darling. You’re a witch. But I do think it would be a good idea if you come to a meeting of the coven. We can assess your skills properly, get a training schedule in place—’

Merry was already out of the car, house keys in hand. ‘Um, sure, Gran. I’ll give you a call later. But I have to go check the manuscript now.’

‘But Merry—’

‘Thanks for the lift!’ Merry walked quickly into the house and shut the front door behind her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to put Gran off indefinitely, but she needed to figure out what had just happened.

So, I obviously haven’t lost my powers.

She tried the witch fire spell again. Nothing.

Great. Not magical enough to be a proper witch, too magical to be an ordinary person. Dangerous. But not dangerous enough to stop a wizard’s curse.

Still, she couldn’t deny it had felt good, even for that brief moment in the car: using her power, controlling it. The desire tugged at her …

No. I can’t give in to it. Not again.

But – if I’m powerless …

She took a couple of deep breaths, and the craving faded. Was that really her choice: risk becoming a monster, or die at the hands of somebody who already was one?

Merry kicked her school bag across the floor, then forced herself to go upstairs and pull the manuscript out from the bottom of her wardrobe. Before she even asked the question, two lines of text bloomed on the page:

This night the servant walks abroad.

The wizard wakes.

Fantastic. Merry threw the manuscript on to the bed and went and knocked on Leo’s door. He was standing in front of his mirror, a towel wrapped round his waist, working wax through his hair.

‘Hey, do you have plans this evening?’

‘Yeah – I’m going out with Dan.’

She shook her head.

‘You were going out with Dan. I’m sorry …’

Three hours later they were back at the lake. Jack came out of the water and Merry said the words that knocked him out, just like the other nights. There was no sign of Gwydion. But as soon as Jack regained consciousness, it was obvious something was different. He knelt before Merry, drew the knife he carried at his waist and offered her the handle.

‘I have remembered. Not everything, but I remember what I have done.’ There was such a depth of anguish in his eyes that she shrank away from him. ‘I beg you, if you have the skill, end it now. Kill me.’

It took a while for Jack to calm down sufficiently for Merry and Leo to make any sense of what he was saying. One minute he was talking about the recent attacks in Tillingham – attacks he now knew he had carried out – the next he was reliving the past, mentioning names and places neither of them had ever heard of. But one thing was clear: the manuscript was right. Gwydion had woken from the enchanted sleep. As far as Jack knew the wizard had only been awake for a few minutes. But that had been enough to trigger the recovery of Jack’s memory, at least partially.

‘This is all Gwydion’s fault, not yours,’ Leo offered. ‘You know that, right? It’s not really you attacking people.’

Jack shook his head.

‘My hands wield the blade. My hands are red with their blood.’ He looked at Merry, his eyes glittering in the moonlight, and Merry thought how different his face was really from that of the King of Hearts: still beautiful, but kind and sad too. ‘Did I not try to kill you?’

Merry nodded. ‘Yes. Though you didn’t get to, in the end. I mean, something stopped you, or stopped whatever was controlling you.’ She didn’t know what else to say. But, as Jack dropped his head into his hands, she felt a twinge of pity for this strange boy, fifteen hundred years away from his home, more alone than any of the other seven billion people on the planet. ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I wish we could help you. I wish—’ She caught herself, and stopped. Because she wasn’t supposed to help him, not really. She had to keep reminding herself: if she was reading the manuscript right, she was supposed to kill him.

‘There is one thing you can do.’ Jack started ripping blades of grass out of the ground next to him. ‘You can tell me truthfully how long I have been asleep.’

* * *

All things considered, Merry reflected, Jack was taking it pretty well. He accepted Merry’s outline of what had happened – there was a lot of stuff he still couldn’t recall – and her explanation that a new plan for dealing with Gwydion had been constructed while he was asleep. But when she finally told him, after using as many delaying tactics as she could think of, exactly how many years had passed since he had last seen the sun, she thought he might freak out. After all, he had just learnt that all the people he had ever loved were dead. And not just dead: so dead that nothing was likely left of them but dust. Not even dust.

If it were me, thought Merry, I would be completely freaking out right about now.

But Jack didn’t. He clenched his jaw, and for a moment Merry could see his hands, balled up into tight fists, shaking. But that was it.

‘Um, are you OK? I mean, it must be a terrible shock for you. Do you—’ I’m sitting here in the dark with a fifteen-hundred-year-old boy who tried to stick a sword in me eight days ago, and I’m about to ask him if he wants to talk about it. Seriously?

Merry cleared her throat. ‘Do you believe us now? That we are who we say we are? Because we really need your help.’

‘I believe you. And I will do anything I can to stop the wizard.’

‘OK.’ Leo leant forwards. ‘Do you know what Gwydion’s current plan is? I mean, is he trying to get out from under the lake himself, or is he just going to keep sending you out? And aren’t you meant to be cutting people’s hearts out?’

Jack groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

‘Oh,’ Leo murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’

They waited while Jack recovered himself. After a few moments he looked up again.

‘I cannot answer you at the moment. Perhaps the knowledge will return to me. But Gwydion must not escape the lake. Before, he would take people from their homes, practise his magic on them – I used to hear them screaming …’

Leo blanched. ‘We can’t let that happen here. And we’re not going to. We’ve got various, you know, magical artefacts that have been passed down to us.’

‘May I see them?’

Leo went to get the parchment out of Merry’s pocket, but she put out her hand to stop him. ‘I think – I think maybe that’s not a good idea. We don’t know whether the – whatever it is, that takes you over, whether it gets to know the things you know.’ She frowned. ‘Or whether it tells Gwydion what it knows. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Yes. You are right, of course. I am not—’ Jack’s mouth twisted into a parody of a smile, ‘—safe. When the curse controls me, I am trapped inside my body. I see what it does as it follows the wizard’s orders, hear it speaking with my voice, but I have no knowledge of Gwydion’s deeper strategies. Perhaps it is reversed when I am myself.’

‘Vengeance,’ Merry whispered, almost to herself. Jack’s eyebrows raised. ‘Um, in the story our gran told us, Gwydion wanted revenge, on your mother. Because she wouldn’t marry him?’

‘My mother?’ Jack shook his head. ‘I have no memory of her. But you may be right.’ He hunched over, wrapping his arms around his knees. The movement revealed thick white scars around his wrists.

Merry wondered briefly what had caused them, before deciding she would much rather not know. Instead, she asked: ‘What’s it like, under the lake? How do you get in and out?’

Jack glanced over at the water. ‘There is a staircase, up to the lake bed. The shadow within me speaks to the rock – at least, that is how it seems to me. And somehow a passageway opens … But I can never remember the words it uses. There is no other way in or out of the ruins.’ He waved a hand towards the lake. ‘The tower is gone. All was drowned.’

Silence fell. Merry poured herself some more coffee from the flask. It was even colder tonight, almost as if the seasons were running backwards; Leo was looking at his phone, and she could see his breath condensing in the air.

She thought of the braid, the thing that had protected her from Gwydion’s own servant – if the manuscript was right. Was it Gwydion’s hair she had tied round her wrist? The idea turned her stomach.

‘Jack, when you were about to, you know, hit me with the sword last Sunday, something stopped you. Leo said it was like you’d run into a brick wall.’ Merry hesitated. ‘A brick is a sort of—’

‘I know what a brick is.’ Jack said.

‘Of course you do. Sorry.’

‘The giants left them.’

‘Er …’

‘That is what the stories say, at any rate, though Father Brendan said they were untrue.’

‘OK … Well, do you remember whether anything like that has happened before? Have you – I mean, has the thing possessing you ever tried to kill someone, but not been able to?’

The sky had clouded over again, and in the darkness Merry could no longer see Jack’s face clearly. He was silent for so long she wondered whether he was slipping back into some kind of magical trance; at her side, Leo shifted and raised his knife again. Eventually, Jack lifted a hand and brushed something away from his cheek. ‘The King of Hearts is without mercy. I remember clearly the first evening Gwydion sent him – me – out to kill, to collect hearts; from then on, I believed none would escape him. But I am certain, one night, some mishap sent the wizard’s plans awry.’

‘What happened? What was different?’

‘I cannot recall … I see myself holding the sword, plunging it downwards, but then – the blade – I—’ He slammed his palm against the ground. ‘Why can I not remember?’

Merry leant closer to him. ‘Hopefully it will come back to you, like you said. Maybe next time.’

Jack gasped and cried out. Leo swore.

‘Quick – get back. He’s losing control.’

They backed away from Jack as he fought to stop his hand moving towards the broken blade. Merry pulled the manuscript out of her pocket. There was the line of words that would force Jack – or the monster now inhabiting his body – back into the lake. But underneath was a fresh instruction.

Jack finally pulled the broken sword from its scabbard and stood up. He weighed it in his hand a moment, looked at them and smiled.

‘Merry?’ Leo murmured, ‘Say the words.’

‘But Leo, the manuscript, it—’

Jack – but not Jack – started walking slowly towards them, the blade weaving back and forth as though he was trying to choose who to attack first. Leo spread his arms wide in front of Merry.

‘Say the damn words!’

Merry shouted the unfamiliar syllables as quickly as she could. Jack’s face became expressionless and she shuddered, even though she had seen this transformation several times now. He sheathed the sword, turned away from them and walked back towards the lake.

‘What the hell happened?’ Leo was at her side now, breathing hard, his knife still gripped tight in his fist.

‘Look.’ Merry held the manuscript out to him, pointing to the new line of instruction. It was just two words.

Follow him.

Leo stared at the manuscript, glanced up at Merry and shook his head.

‘No. No, we can’t just…’

‘But Leo, I have to try.

I can’t believe I said that. I can’t believe I’m even thinking about getting into that lake.

Oh, God.

Leo shook his head again, but he grabbed Merry’s hand and they both threw themselves after Jack.

Within a few moments they were approaching the water’s edge. But Jack was too far ahead of them. He veered off, began running up the slope where the land rose to form a cliff, leapt – and for a second they saw him outlined against the stars, before he dropped feet-first into the seething waters and disappeared. Leo hesitated, turned away from the hill and plunged down towards the lower edge of the lake, tugging Merry with him.

‘Kick off your shoes. We’ll have to swim.’

They waded out deeper, the lake bed fell away from beneath their feet and Leo let go of Merry’s hand. She tried to push herself forwards, to make her arms and legs move together, to regulate her breathing as she’d been taught, but already the frigid water was in her eyes and soaking through her clothes, taking her breath away –

– cold, that’s what she remembered, the river was so cold and black, the weight of it crushing her, dragging her downwards as she tried to pull him back to the bank, the water getting into her throat, choking her –

Merry sank.

‘I’m sorry, Leo.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You could have drowned. You nearly did.’

They were sitting in Leo’s car. Flo’s mum, Denise, had been the witch on duty at the little car park. She’d called Gran and then asked Merry if she wanted to have a go at drying their clothes, managing to look simultaneously amazed and unsurprised when Merry declined. The spell Denise used seemed to suck the moisture out of the fabric: Merry had watched, trembling with cold, too numb to be envious, as streamers of water vapour spiralled away into the night air. When Gran arrived she brought a large flask of a fiery liquid that tasted strangely of thyme. Metheglin, she’d called it. While Merry was sipping it, her insides thawing, Leo shared what they’d learnt from Jack. Gran was particularly interested in the idea of a word that would open the passageway under the lake. Now, she’d gone off to do some research – Gran didn’t seem to keep normal hours – and Leo was waiting for his hands to warm up so he could drive Merry home. At least there was no urgency: at Gran’s (magical) prompting, a work colleague had invited Mum to see a musical in London. The coast was clear for once.

‘But I am sorry,’ Merry said again. ‘We – we might have been under the lake by now …’

‘No. We’d be dead. I was stupid, to think—’ Leo took his hands away from the hot air vent, flexed his fingers. ‘I don’t understand it. There’s no way he should be able to swim down through all that water. Though even if the lake was shallower, even if we’d been better prepared, I’m not sure you …’ He glanced at Merry, shrugged. ‘I thought you loved swimming … but … you didn’t seem to be dealing with the water that well.’

Merry rubbed the tears away from her face. Her chest ached, partly from choking and coughing up water, partly from the effort of not weeping uncontrollably. All the emotions she hadn’t been feeling for the last week – all the shock and terror and disbelief – were beating down on her like hammers on an anvil.

‘I can’t do it, Leo. I don’t think it would make any difference if the weather wasn’t so cold, or if I had a wetsuit on – I can’t do what Jack did. We’re going to run out of time. Gwydion has already won.’

‘No, he hasn’t. There must be another way under the lake. Or maybe we can get Jack to bring the hearts to us. We’ll figure it out.’

Merry wasn’t so sure.

Not for the first time, Merry wished that Bronwen was the kind of mother who kept stashes of prescription drugs in the house rather than relying on herbs, yoga and willpower. Then, she might have been able to swallow a sleeping pill, instead of lying in bed, wide awake, nearly two hours after they’d got back from the lake. Every time she dozed off, some night-time noise in the house jerked her awake, setting her heart thumping, forcing her to switch on the lamp to make sure no one else was in the room with her. Every time she switched the lamp off again she saw faces in the darkness: Jack; Meredith; Alex, his skin blue with cold as she dragged him out of the water. All the people she had failed. Eventually she gave up, and left the light on. The parchment and the sword hilt were in the top drawer of her bedside table, but the plait of hair was still tied around her wrist; she hadn’t taken it off since that first night, when Jack – the King of Hearts, rather – had almost got close enough to kill her. She examined it now – a light nut-brown, with a few strands of grey – and wondered what it was that Jack had been trying to remember.

The recollection of the conversation they’d had with him, the agony in his voice as he told them what he’d done – Merry pulled her knees up to her chest, wanting to shut out the sudden stab of compassion and remorse. It would have been so much easier if he had just kept glowering at them.

She looked at the braid again, trying to think dispassionately about what she might have to do. After they’d destroyed the hearts – whatever they turned out to be – she would say the words to knock Jack unconscious, and then –

What? Kill him magically? Stab him? Cover his mouth and nose with a pillow until –

Merry squeezed her eyes shut against the pictures in her head. Even though the image of Jack standing over her with the broken blade was fresh in her mind – still made her breath short with terror – she couldn’t hate him. After talking to him this evening, she pitied him. More than that: she almost (kind of) trusted him. It didn’t make any sense. But somehow, he felt … familiar.

Poor Jack. She tried to imagine him dressed in modern clothes and with a different haircut, and the thought made her smile a little. Jack would make a pretty cute twenty-first century teenager. If things had been different, maybe they could have been friends.

In the dream, Merry wasn’t wearing pyjamas. She was wearing a gown of thick, red-brown wool that fell in heavy folds from below the belt around her waist. Glancing down, she saw objects hanging from the belt: a leather pouch, a knife, a stone with a hole through its centre. Nearby stood a pair of enormous wooden doors, dark-coloured, scarred with runes and symbols.

There was a touch on her shoulder. Jack was standing behind her. He cupped her face in his hands, gazing down at her as though he was trying to memorise every detail of her skin, her eyes, her lips.

‘Jack …’ Merry’s eyes closed. Jack’s lips were firm and cool as they moved against hers; he put his arms around her and pulled her close. For one infinitesimal, infinite moment, Merry was burning, and liquid gold was running through her veins.