Chapter 38
Ember
“You just had to open your big fucking mouth didn’t you!,” I shriek down the phone, my eyes stinging through the wet tears. I knew I’d probably regret this later, but I was just so angry at her. If she hadn’t called, things might have finally worked out between me and Arthur.
“Excuse me young lady. One: do not swear at me. Two: I told you that there would be consequences to the spell, it’s not my fault,” Allegra says firmly down the line. Her tone a far-cry from her usual sunshine.
“It’s your fault for blabbering though! If you hadn’t have said anything, he would never have known,” I cry.
She lets out a long exhale, “Ember, I wasn’t to know that he was in the room with you at the time. But I don’t know, maybe it was a good idea that he was, because it seems that you were planning to continue to lie to him anyway. Dare I say, I don’t know who you are right now, but you’re acting like a brat.”
I’m gobsmacked. She’s never, ever, called me anything like that before. The tears start to flow like water down a stream, washing the anger away to leave nothing but sadness and regret in its wake.
“I-Allegra, I’m so sorry,” I croak. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
There’s a brief moment of silence like she’s trying to find the right words, “I know you didn’t sweetheart. If I’m being honest with you, thisseems like the bad after the good. The overarching negative outcome of the spell. You losing him and him losing you. You just need to decide now what you’re going to do about it.”
I swallow as I reflect on her words. Could this be my comeuppance? Losing Arthur and him losing me.
I’d had enough sadness this week to last a lifetime. I’d lost my best friends, and now I lost Arthur too. All because I couldn’t leave it. I just had to get involved. I curse myself as I realise what a big fat liar I truly am.
“Allegra?,” I whisper into the phone.
“Yes?,” she replies calmly.
“…I think I need to come home for a while.”
◆◆◆
I don’t think I stopped crying throughout the entire journey home. I didn’t know it was possible for a human to produce that many tears all at once. I didn’t even care for the amount of strange looks I received on the train, you’d have thought I’d at least have some sympathetic ones, but the snotty teary-eyed girl in the back of the train, seemed to be more of a hindrance. Clearly, my constant sniffing was ruining the public transport ‘ambience.’ When I finally got off and started rounding the corner of my cobbled street, I was suddenly aware that I was in such a different predicament than the last time I came here, creeping about with a cat-carrier and breaking into my own childhood home. I couldn’t help but let out a faint laugh as the memory flashed through my mind. To think, I thought I was in a stressful situation then, if only that Ember, could have known what was to come, what I know now. Quickly shaking off those feelings before I become a human sprinkler once again, I head towards the front door, this time unlocking the door with my own key like a normal human being. As I twist the key in the lock, I’m immediately greeted with two sympathetic faces staring back at me. Without even saying anything, I’m sandwiched between the both of them in a group hug.
“I’m so sorry,” I muffle into their hair, biting the insides of my cheeks to desperately prevent the tears from flowing. Allegra shushes me and rubs my head as mum squeezes me tighter. When they eventually pull away from me, mum pipes up, “let’s go and have a chat shall we?,” gesturing to the living room. I nod, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my jumper.
“I’ll let you two chat,” Allegra says kindly, placing a warm palm on my shoulder before heading upstairs.
As I prop my suitcase down in the kitchen and follow mum into the living room, I’m nearly knocked over by a Black ball of fluff. “Robert!” I shout. It’s probably the first time I’ve managed to let out more than a whisper all day. I instantly pick him up and bury my face deep into his velvety fur. “I missed you so much little guy,” I coo, his purrs becoming deeper with every stroke.
“He’s certainly missed you,” mum adds, smiling at the reunion. “Although he’s settled in well, I think he could tell that someone was missing.”
I smirk, “finally glad you adopted him then?”
She rolls her eyes before smiling, “think he adopted me to be honest,” she takes a sip of her tea, “he’s a devil, but I can see why you love him so much.”
“I still feel guilty about how he got here though- seems the theme of a lot of things in my life lately- mistakes,” I mumble.
Mum places her mug back down on the coaster, “you know I’d say there’s no such thing as mistakes, only happy accidents.”
“You’ve been watching too much Bob Ross,” I chuckle.
She clears her throat, “Ember, after everything that’s happened lately, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that you couldn’t come to me with any problems. I know you’ve been going to Allegra for support and that’s great, but you can always come to me too you know. You don’t have to leave me behind.”
My heart aches. I didn’t know that she felt like that. I’d been so intent on straying away from my past and creating this whole new life for myself, that perhaps in the process, I have left her behind.
I awkwardly look down at the floor, “I didn’t think you cared. When I first told you that I was giving up magic, you seemed to resent me. I guess I thought that without magic, I wasn’t worthy of anything. You felt that I was letting you down, letting dad down.”
“Ember, no,” she edges closer to me now and wraps and arm around me. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed at first. That was just the shock of everything. Losing your dad felt like losing a part of myself with him. I just felt guilty that we wouldn’t be carrying on with something that he loved so much.” My muscles start to tense now as I realise I was acting like a brat back then.
Obviously sensing the tension, she shakes her head. “But then I remember that I had no right to put that kind of pressure on you. You were only a teenager for god’s sake. He loved magic, but he loved us so much more. He wouldn’t have ever wanted us to fight over it, let alone become distant from one another. I’m sorry I didn’t understand back then, but I do now. I wouldn’t have wanted to visit me either if I knew I was just going to get grief every time.”
I sniff down the tears and hug her tighter, “I forgive you. And I’m so sorry for pulling away. I’m sorry for going behind your back and stealing dad’s books, I’m sorry for doing the spell without telling you. I’ve messed everything up and I-I just don’t know what to do mum,” my voice trembles. In that moment, I’m in ruins, reverting back to a small child who needs her mummy. I feel awful for steering away from her, I’d lost one parent, I didn’t want to lose another too.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I sob.
She kisses my forehead, “I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s at this moment that Allegra peers her read round the door, “is it okay if I come in?,” she smiles warmly, her caramel eyes dancing over the two of us.
“I think that would be really helpful,” mum replies. “Now,” she says releasing me from her grasp, “I think we should start from the beginning. When you’re ready, tell us everything. Don’t hold anything back. We need to know every detail of the spell and the outcomes.”
“Like I said before, I don’t think there’s a magical solution to this. But, if you explain what happened, we might be able to come up with a solution. To apologise to your friends, to help them understand,” Allegra adds.
I gulp as my brain recollects everything that has happened over the past few months. The good and the bad. We spend most of the night making notes of the spell and examining dad’s books that I brought back with me. We note down the timeline of events, everything that happened to Arthur, his relationship with me and the truth that ruined everything. I’m honestly surprised at the level of enthusiasm coming from the two of them, they’re scribbling stuff down and reading notes like they’re detecting in a game of Cluedo. Not going to lie, I do feel embarrassed rehashing it all again, especially when everything is there, the story of my life, plain as day on neon post-it notes spread out on the table in front of me. I also don’t miss the exchange of smirks between the two of them as I mention the ‘moment’ between us at the ice-skating rink and in the club. But as we dissect, divulge and discuss, (sounds like we’re in a GSCE science lesson I know), we might have struck gold. There might be solution, albeit temporary. It’s something so simple, yet has the potential to be so powerful without any magic involved whatsoever. I’m not ready to go back to Bath yet, I needed time to get my head around everything and have thankfully only got two assignments left which are both coursework based, so I can complete them at home. I can’t call anyone, I don’t think I’d find the right words to express over the phone and as you can probably tell from my history as of late, I never manage to convey verbally what I actually want to say, either turning practically mute, or inadvertently insulting someone in the process. No, I needed to take a different route. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try to explain my reasoning for everything. If after this, Arthur still didn’t want anything to do with me, then I’d have no other choice to accept that. But I wasn’t going down without a fight, and as a famous person who I definitely don’t know the name of once said, when all else fails, write what your heart tells you.