FLIES

Whispers divide; in secrets we thrive.

Tenet Six, The Book of the Binders

Effie banged the large and tattered grimoire she’d taken from the Library on the altar. ‘It’s time! These wrongs need to be righted. These hierarchies broken. Justice served and punishments delivered. The Juicers need to be poured down the drain and left to rot – and I have just the spell.’

Anna had never seen her look more alive. She had the feeling this was what Effie had been waiting for since they started the coven.

‘Shouldn’t we technically report the bullying to Headmaster Connaughty?’ said Manda, looking a little afraid. ‘Surely there’s enough evidence to prove Darcey is harassing Rowan …’

Effie baulked. ‘You think this school has a proper justice system? You think Darcey wouldn’t find a way of turning it all around? No. I am talking about a different kind of justice. Nature’s justice. A woman’s revenge. Wild and lawless, measured out by moonlight, exacted by the Dark Moon itself. We need to bring it.’ Effie opened the book and announced with restless flourish: ‘It’s a rumour spell.’

‘More rumours?’ said Rowan.

‘Why not fight fire with fire? Either we’re controlling them, or they are. It’s an old spell and a powerful one, originally intended for gossipmongers and spiteful chinwaggers. Apparently it was the inspiration behind the old nursery rhyme “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly” …

‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.

I don’t know why she swallowed the fly – perhaps she’ll die?

Oh why, oh why, did she swallow a fly?

‘The book states it was written by a witch whose daughter was hanged for witchcraft after someone in the town spread malicious gossip about her. The spell gives the caster power to turn the gossiper into the gossiped-about, to twist their rumours back on themselves. We just need to decide on the rumours.’

‘What will they do?’ Anna asked.

‘They will hound them, chase them. They won’t go away easily.’

The fear in Manda’s eyes had turned to excitement. ‘I’d love to see them get a taste of their own medicine.’

‘I don’t normally live by the concept of revenge, but come bane or boon I’ve got to make an exception for the Juicers,’ said Rowan.

Anna thought of Rowan drying her tears in the bathroom, of Darcey’s laughter which poured out of her as easily as her cruelty. Rumours could be nasty but they couldn’t cause any real harm. She turned to Attis, who was sitting on one the desks in the corner of the room. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think let Darcey chase her own tail for a while.’

He’s never going to disagree with Effie.

‘She can choke on her tail for all I care,’ said Effie. ‘Anna, if we don’t do this, it’ll just get worse for Rowan. You don’t want that, do you?’

Anna shook her head. It was the last thing she wanted. ‘I’m in.’

‘Good. I’ve thought of a few rumours already.’ Effie smiled slyly. ‘Thought we could say Corinne’s a nymphomaniac.’

‘I think she might already be known as that,’ Rowan pointed out.

‘Any other ideas then?’

Manda stepped forward. ‘Corinne’s whole reputation is built on the fact that she’s, you know, chilled out – all about the free love, pretending to be your friend. Makes me sick. What if we took that away from her? We could say she actually suffers from acute rage issues and all that yoga and drug-taking is just to keep her mellow, but at any moment, she might just …’ Manda clicked her fingers. ‘Snap.’

Effie considered it. ‘It’s a curveball, but funny. I like it. I, of course, already have one prepared for Darcey.’ She cleared her throat theatrically. ‘She may have boys running after her, but she’s only got eyes for one man and, hell, what a man: Headmaster Connaughty.’

Rowan spluttered. ‘What? That’s insane. No one will believe that.’

‘Well, under normal circumstances, no, but these are magical rumours.’

‘He’s so – so’ – Manda shuddered – ‘old and large and ugh. I can’t in a million years imagine them together.’

‘You’ll be able to soon. What about Olivia?’

‘I’ve got one,’ said Rowan. ‘She wants to be Darcey. She’s obsessed and jealous of her and will go to any length to be her, in every way.’

This one was just within the boundaries of reality. Olivia knew she didn’t quite live up to Darcey and poured all her efforts into her looks and clothes to make up for that fact.

‘Appropriately twisted.’ Effie steepled her hands.

‘Well, she’s the one who made up the name Beast,’ Rowan added defensively, as if ashamed of her suggestion.

‘So we’re agreed? Corinne suffers from rage episodes, Olivia is obsessed with Darcey and Darcey and Connaughty are having an affair. Ta-da.’

They nodded and Anna did too. Hearing them expressed like that they seemed more ridiculous than anything else. Surely no one would really believe them. They waited while Effie wrote out the rumours and the wording for the spell before handing it to them to learn. Anna muttered the words over and over, committing them to memory. She didn’t want to be the weak link this time.

‘Ready?’

Effie held up a glass container. Inside three flies whirred around, large and angry, butting themselves against their glass prison. She held it to her eye. ‘Three flies for three rumours.’ She placed the container in the centre, followed by three cups. ‘Their juices from this morning,’ she explained, ‘and put your phones in the centre too.’

‘Why?’ said Rowan.

‘We need the rumours to travel everywhere and most of the gossip in this hellhole of a school lives inside them.’

Attis began shaking salt out around the perimeter of their circle, then back into the centre forming a pentagram shape. Once he’d finished, Effie stepped forward. They turned to look at her. Her eyes flashed in the light and she held up her hands.

‘Energies joined, joined we stand,

May none enter our ring of hands.

Between the worlds we now roam,

Take us there and safely home.

As above so below, as within so without,

Weave our circle without doubt!’

Anna imagined a circle surrounding them, powerful and protective. They repeated the words until she didn’t have to visualize it any more, she could feel it, solid and whole, cutting them off from the world beyond, placing them somewhere else that could have been anywhere else: a dark forest, a high mountain, a wasteland.

Effie looked at Manda and she stepped forward, nervously. ‘I call to the watchtowers of the North, to the element of Earth. Bring forth your justice which is strong and sure.’

Rowan stepped forward. ‘I call to the watchtowers of the East, to the element of Air. Bring forth your justice which is cunning and true.’

Effie’s turn. ‘I call to the watchtowers of the South, to the element of Fire. Bring forth your justice which is force and fury.’

The words came out of Anna without her needing to try, as if they had been waiting for her to find them. ‘I call to the watchtowers of the West, to the element of Water. Bring forth your justice which is passionate and pure.’

They spoke together. ‘By pentacle, wand, blade and chalice, charge our spell with nature’s justice.’

Effie opened the jar of flies; they flew out but remained in the centre, chasing each other in circles, buzzing madly. Effie placed the pieces of paper on which she’d written the rumours inside the container.

‘Curdle and coil, serpents of spite,

How you hiss and rattle, with tongues that bite.

Gossip and spoil, rumour fly and infest –

Swallow them whole at our behest.’

As their chant grew the flies began to buzz with a demented energy. Anna felt the same energy coursing through her. It was different to magic she’d experienced before, which had come almost by accident, gentle and tentative, dream-like. This magic was certain, forceful – within her and beyond her. It was the elements; the whirr of flies; the dark rumours and the darker words – the threads binding tightly together into a web that quivered and shook with dark delight. Their voices rose. Anna felt torn between exhilaration and panic – the feeling you get standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down.

‘Gossip and spoil, rumour fly and infest –

Swallow them whole at our behest!’

The power of the spell expanded, threatening to pull them apart – they held tight, raised it up into the air, flies reaching the ceiling like a storm cloud. Effie laughing. Candles sputtering. The sewing machine on the altar bursting to life, needle chattering: Ticker. Ticker. Ticker! Anna felt as if her head would explode, as if water were filling it, as if it were buzzing with flies. They called out the words – louder, louder, louder – and then, suddenly, the flies were released, flying away, disappearing.

‘By pentacle, wand, blade and chalice, elements be released. As below so above, as without, so within. Close our circle but leave it spin.’

The candles went out and they were plunged into darkness. Anna felt herself returning from wherever she’d been, her head flying in different directions. She’d never experienced magic so intense before. Effie stepped into the centre and sealed the jar of rumours with relish and placed the empty cups on the altar.

‘That was good. We can do better, of course, but that was good.’ Her eyes were wide, otherworldly, still high on magic.

Rowan dropped to the floor. ‘I’m exhausted.’

Manda slumped down next to her. ‘I didn’t even feel like myself for a while there, it was … intense.’

Attis entered their circle with a smile. ‘It was. I was terrified.’

Effie put her arms round him. ‘I told you, didn’t I? I told you this would work.’

‘I never doubted you, as I never do.’

‘I’m always right.’

‘I bow to Queen Effie.’

‘Oh,’ said Rowan who had just picked up her phone from the floor.

‘What?’ Effie turned to her.

‘Er …’ Rowan turned her phone around to face them.

The screen was glitching – static – no, not quite – a pattern was beginning to form through the noise. Circles. Seven circles. Anna’s heart lurched.

Slowly, they all turned to look at her.

‘It might not be seven circles.’ Rowan squinted at it. ‘It’s hard to make out – could be six. Could be, er, eight.’

Manda and Effie picked up their phones to investigate and turned the screens round – they were filled with seven circles too. Anna didn’t know what to say.

‘I hope it’s not broken,’ said Manda with a touch of accusation.

‘Point is,’ said Attis, ‘the spell worked. Job done. Let’s go.’

‘We need to keep an eye on this,’ said Effie, drawing their attention back to the static.

‘I don’t know why …’ said Anna. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘Let’s go,’ Attis repeated.

They cleared up and gathered their things. Their phones went back to normal after restarting them, but the pattern of the seven circles was not so easy to erase from Anna’s mind. Cursed. A dark explosion of the heart.

She left last and, before turning the lights off, looked around the room – along its windows, into its corners. There were no flies. Where have they gone?