Glory returned to Cooper Street in the late afternoon. It had turned warm again and a moist green smell hung in the air, mingling with the traffic fumes. The same skinhead kids dawdled in the shadow of the tower block; chewing, gobbing, blagging, cussing. When she walked by, one whistled and the others jeered.
Patrick was sitting on the steps of Number Eight, peering into the hand-held games console Patch had swiped for him last Christmas. His thin hair puffed up a little in the breeze.
‘There you are, Glory.’
‘Hello, Dad.’
She went to sit beside him, and leaned against his shoulder. Plink, plink, bleep went the console. He was still in his dressing gown. She remembered the Chief Prosecutor, storming into the basement with a squad of armed men. How he’d sunk on to the puddled floor and cradled his son in his arms. How fierce his tenderness.
‘I was sorry to hear about Charlie,’ Patrick said, eyes fixed on the screen. ‘Nasty business, that. How’s the family bearing up?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘And what about, er, Harry? Is he with the Morgans now?’
‘No. I . . . I’m not sure we’ll be seeing much more of him.’
‘Oh, dear. He seemed like a nice lad.’
‘I s’pose. Turns out we had more in common than I thought.’ Glory wearily got to her feet. ‘I need to talk to Auntie Angel.’
Patrick looked up at her at last. He gave a cough. ‘Ah. Hmm. You know, you spend an awful lot of time with your great-aunt. Sometimes I worry she has a bit too much influence over you.’
‘Do you? Really?’ Her voice trembled. ‘And you never thought to say before?’
His face clouded with puzzlement. Before it could turn to hurt, she managed a smile. ‘Never mind, Dad. It doesn’t matter. I – I love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Plink, plink, bleep.
She went a little way down the street and knocked on the old lady’s door.
‘Glory! I’ve been worried sick. Why ain’t you returned my calls? Keeping me in the dark – what do you think you’re playing at? Downright rude, I call it. Ungrateful too. D’you have any idea how many people’ve been looking for you, missy? And what’s this I hear about you running around with Troy Morgan? Where’s Harry? There’s all sorts of rumours flying, I can tell you . . .’
She rattled on for a while. Glory didn’t hear any of it. She stood very still in the room she’d been raised in. She knew every fringe and tassel and candy-stripe, every scrap of newsprint, every black and white smile. The Holy Temple of the Starling Sisterhood.
Angeline had run out of breath for scolding. Or maybe Glory’s silence had got to her. ‘Come on, girl,’ she said gruffly. ‘Speak up.’
Glory unfolded the piece of paper Lucas had given to her and passed it to her great-aunt.
‘I know it’s true.’ She sat down on one of the overstuffed chairs. ‘Now you tell me why.’
Glory had seen Angeline do her frail old lady act before. This was different; a stripping down, not a putting on. Her great-aunt’s face grew patched and grey, and when she lowered herself into a seat, her flesh shrivelled and her hands shook. But her voice stayed firm.
‘You want the Starling Girl story, do you?’
‘The real one. Yeah.’
‘All right,’ Angeline said, with a kind of ragged defiance. ‘All right, then. I’ll tell you how it was with my sisters and me.’ Her mouth convulsed. ‘I’d blowed their noses and wiped their arses ever since I were old enough to stand upright. Then after our ma and pa was gone, I scrimped and slaved to keep us together and off the streets. I got married to Joe, even though he were a drunk and a thug and fifteen years older’n me, so they’d have a roof over their heads, and because our family owed it to the coven. And as soon as they could, they skipped off to seek their fortunes. Didn’t ever look back.
‘Well, I should’ve known. Everyone said they’d grow up to be heartbreakers. The adorable Starling Twins! Sweet enough to charm the birds off the trees, sharp enough to steal the coat off a drunk’s back.
‘They got riches, lovers, power, their picture in the papers. I didn’t begrudge them, I were proud. All I wanted was to be allowed to help – to be a little part of the legend. Maybe my fae weren’t as dazzling as theirs, but they still used it, and me, whenever it suited. I covered for them. I witchworked for them. I got poked at with needles, and ducked in tanks.
‘I loved them girls but they only loved each other. Not any of their fancy men, nor even their own children really. They was each other’s whole world . . .’
There was a film on her eyes. Glory hardened herself against it.
‘I see. You loved my granny so much you turned her in to the Inquisition.’
‘It weren’t a plan. I hardly knew what I was doing. I was half crazy, at the time. When Cora called, I’d just got home from burying Old Joe. The police and prickers was swarming over Cooper Street; we was up to our eyeballs in debt. And there was my little sister on the phone, laughing and prattling away like she’d never left. Five years she’d been gone, and never a word. ‘‘Oh, I got such adventures to tell you,’’ she said. ‘‘So many stories! And how are you?’’ she asked. ‘‘How’s poor old Ange?’’
‘Cora weren’t ever frightened of nothing. A right wild one, she was. Careless of everything and everybody. Just once, I wanted her to know how it felt. To be powerless and humiliated and afraid. I wanted her in those tanks, yes. But I never . . . I never wanted her to drown . . .’
‘But she did.’
‘Yes, she did.’ Angeline sniffed loudly. ‘God forgive me, she did. And I tried to make amends by raising her child. But Lily took Edie away from me; said I’d never been a mother myself, that she knew what was best for her precious twin’s girl. And it were only when Lil died and your ma was on her own again that she remembered Cooper Street, and her poor old Auntie Ange. Ha. A right comedown it must have been for her.
‘Still, I was so pleased. So happy. Everyone could see Edie was special. God only knew who her father was, but she had her mother’s talent, all right, and her own steadiness. The makings of a great witch. She’d give Cooper Street what it needed, what I deserved. Together we’d be unstoppable.’
‘So what happened? You shopped her to the Inquisition too?’
Angeline looked confused.
‘You can cut the crap, Auntie. I know Charlie didn’t kill her. She was seen five years ago. Alive.’
‘But how d’you –? Where –? It can’t be . . .’
‘It is,’ said Glory roughly. ‘Because we both know there was never a grave in Dunstan Woods, or a burial amulet. My mum really did leave. She’d had enough. Just like her note said. What did you do to her, to drive her away?’
The old woman smiled sourly. ‘Edie was more like Cora than I knew. The kind that always leaves, never looks back. I didn’t see it till it were too late.’
‘Shut up. You lied before and you’re lying now. You manipulated me so I’d turn snitch, become a traitor like you. The Morgans –’
‘The Morgans have made plenty of widows and orphans, girl. Don’t you forget it.’ Angeline’s bright black eyes stared into hers. ‘And I never lied about your inheritance. I want you to be a great witch, Glory. I want you to make this coven the biggest and the best there ever was. That’s why I taught you everything I know, that’s why I’ll fight for your rights till there’s no breath left in my body. I’ve put my love in you, and my hopes. I’ve made you my own.’
Glory looked around the room. The faded headlines. The three laughing girls. The shabby old woman before her.
‘I ain’t yours. I never have been, and I never will be.’
Angeline gave a small dry sob. Then she bared her yellowed teeth. ‘You think you can go crawling to the Morgans, I suppose. You reckon if you pout nicely enough, Troy’ll sweep you off your feet. Or maybe you’ll cosy up to the Inquisition instead, now you and the pyros are such pals?’
Glory got to her feet.
‘Goodbye, Auntie.’
‘Go on, then. Leave me, just like all the rest.’ She staggered upright. ‘Ungrateful little bitch.’ Her voice rose, hoarsely, to a shriek. ‘Get out and don’t ever come back. Because it’ll be too late then – too late –’
Glory shut the door. She breathed in the cool damp air. A wash of crimson flooded the sky behind the tower block.
Through the window of Patrick’s bedroom she could hear a bleep, bleep, bleep. Music pounded from Number Seven; next door, the bull terriers howled. On the steps of Number Eight, Nate smoked and lounged.
‘Hello, girlie,’ he said as she walked past him. ‘Troy’s been looking for you.’
She didn’t look round.
‘Where’re you going?’
‘I don’t know.’
I am Gloriana Starling Wilde. I am fifteen years old. I am a witch.
I can do anything.
She walked further, faster. She put back her head, and laughed. She spread out her arms. She began to run.