I wallowed in the tub for ages, topping up the water when it cooled off and feeling the heat soothe my battered limbs – except for my bandaged left wrist, which I awkwardly kept draped along the side of the bath.
My head was still tender and I was bruised all over from falling in the snow. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard the dreadful rumble and saw the people disappear in the cloud of ice. I suspected the emotional trauma of the day would take longer to heal than my bruises.
I stretched my toes out and turned on the hot tap again, wriggling slightly so the warm water reached me quicker. I was, I thought, quite proud of myself. I’d always been a reluctant witch, wary of relying too much on my own powers and often preferring to do things the old-fashioned way. But today had shown me that spells and charms weren’t just about making the world work for you – they could work for others too. Of course I’d seen firsthand how many people Mum, Suky and Eva had helped over the years. And Harry was massively in demand at her swanky spa and on her website. But today, on that frozen hill, it had just been about saving lives. I’d never have thought I was capable of it. I was always doubting my abilities. But I’d done it. And I was pretty pleased with myself. I wondered if the people who had been buried in the snow were doing okay and made up my mind to ask Lou to find out. She could ring the local police, I was sure. Thinking of Lou made me wonder if the others were home yet. I pulled myself out of the bath, feeling all my aching limbs complain, wrapped myself in a towel and went to get dressed. It was only just after six p.m. – it had been a very, very long day – but I pulled on my pyjamas with a thick jumper on top. I roughly dried my hair and hoiked it into a ponytail and then went to find my mum.
She was in the kitchen laying the table. Something delicious-smelling was in the oven, a salad bowl was on the side, and there was an open bottle of red wine just asking to be poured.
‘Esme,’ she said when she saw me. ‘Darling girl.’ She threw her arms around me and held me tight. I started to cry again, even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t. It really had been a horrible day.
‘I know,’ Mum said, stroking my hair like she had when I was tiny. ‘I know. You’ve had such an awful time, but you saved all those people. You did that, Ez.’
I gave her a watery smile and she steered me into a seat and poured me a glass of wine.
‘Tell me all about it,’ she said, even though Harry must have already filled her in on most of it. ‘It’s good to talk.’
We chatted for a while and Suky joined us and hugged me as Mum had done.
‘You clever, clever girl,’ she said. ‘I always knew you could do it.’
Then Harry and Louise arrived in the kitchen too. Harry was wearing yoga trousers and had wet hair, while Lou was in her PJs like me.
‘Jamie and Tansy are putting Parker to bed,’ Harry said, pouring wine into a clean glass and handing it to Lou. ‘He’s beat, the poor wee thing.’
Louise and I shared a glance. Parker really had won Harry’s heart.
‘Jamie said he’d be down in a minute, but Tansy’s going to bed now too,’ Harry carried on. ‘Jetlag I think.’
Mum turned the oven down.
‘The lasagne’s ready,’ she said. ‘So we can just have a drink and wait for Jamie.’
I looked round at everyone.
‘I’m going to need your help,’ I said. I’d been thinking of virtually nothing else since Penny had told me the road was blocked.
‘The avalanche means nothing can come into Claddach,’ I explained. ‘So my dress, Harry’s dress, the food – it’s all stuck outside.’
I paused to gulp some wine.
‘And Chloe, and Dad and the bloody registrar. What are we going to do?’
There was nothing Mum and Suky liked better than a crisis. They sprang into action immediately. Mum waggled her fingers and a notepad and pen appeared in front of her.
‘Right,’ she said, clicking the pen. ‘Where shall we start?’
We all shuffled round the table a bit so we were closer together and everyone looked at me.
‘Easy stuff first?’ I suggested.
Harry nodded.
‘Dresses,’ she said.
The important thing to remember about magic – our sort at least – is that it’s not, well, magic. We can’t create things that aren’t there. We can just move them about, or change them. Sitting there in the kitchen, none of us could have spun a wedding dress out of thin air. If we had a pile of fabric, though, we could wiggle our fingers and make it into whatever we pleased. And getting a wedding dress from wherever it was – somewhere between here and Aberdeen – was child’s play.
‘They’re in a van somewhere,’ I said. ‘I can get those.’
‘All of them?’ Mum asked.
‘Mine, Harry’s and Chloe’s,’ I said. ‘Jamie and Frankie have got their suits, and we brought their ties up from Edinburgh.’
Mum wrote down “Dresses” on her pad, then wrote “Esme” next to it.
‘What’s next?’ she said.
‘Food,’ said Suky. ‘Eva and I can sort that out, no trouble.’
Mum wrote that down too, while Harry topped up all our glasses. I was beginning to relax for the first time all day and suddenly I thought it was all going to be okay.
‘Basically, all the supplies we can sort,’ Harry said. ‘We just need to work out what’s here already and what we still need. We wouldn’t want to double up on bows for the backs of the chairs.’
I stuck my tongue out at her cheerfully, so grateful for her help that her little digs all washed over me.
‘Put down Lou and me for everything else, Auntie Tess,’ she said.
Louise winked at me.
‘We’ll have this wedding knocked into shape in no time,’ she said.
‘What about the people,’ I asked. ‘What about Dad?’
My dad lived down south in Cheltenham. I’d lived with him for a while when I was a teenager, running away from witchcraft. I abso-bloody-lutely adored him and my younger half brothers Mitchell and Mason. I couldn’t imagine getting married without him. Or, I grudgingly admitted to myself, without my step-mum Olivia. She may not have always been my biggest fan – I was a bit too haphazard for her pernickety tastes – but was still a part of my family.
‘Where is he?’ Mum asked. I shrugged.
‘He and Olivia were planning to visit a few places on their way up,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember where they were going first. Mitch is in Glasgow still so they’re picking him up on the way.’
Mitch was a very talented musician who was studying at music college in Glasgow. Mason, who was two years younger, was more like my straight-laced RAF dad. He’d joined the army and was training at Sandhurst.
‘I’ll ring Mitch,’ I said. ‘Find out who’s where.’
‘What about the registrar?’ said Mum. ‘We can’t do much without one. Are they all outside Claddach I wonder…’
Harry was looking thoughtful.
‘We could use the Mountain Rescue helicopter,’ she said. ‘I could persuade that Willie to let us use it.’
But Mum shook her head.
‘We could,’ she said. ‘But when there are rock falls and avalanches happening all over the place, it wouldn’t be right. He’d do whatever we asked him at the expense of everyone else.’
I shivered. I didn’t want any people missing or worse dead just so I could have the perfect wedding day.
We all sat silently for a while, then I had an idea.
‘We could enchant whoever’s working on clearing the road,’ I said. ‘Get them to do it faster. We could even draft in some extra volunteers.’
This time Louise shook her head.
‘They’re not doing anything,’ she said. ‘Penny explained it all to me. The mountain’s not stable, so they need to wait for it to start to thaw naturally.’
‘That could be weeks from now,’ I said, shocked. Suddenly it wasn’t just my wedding that was at stake but my job, our honeymoon – would we be stuck in Claddach for much longer than we’d thought?
‘They’re going to divert the road,’ Louise said. ‘About half a mile before the site of the avalanche, there’s a track across a field that goes into town.’
Harry looked blank but I knew where Lou meant – I’d run along that track hundreds of times.
‘They’re planning to bring in tons of grit to widen the track and have it as access only for now,’ Louise said. ‘But they can’t even do that until they know the mountain’s safe.’
I felt tears fill my eyes again and my head began to throb.
Once more I was struck by happy and excited I’d been just yesterday – was it really only yesterday – and now everything had fallen apart. I’d been so thrilled about having a beautiful winter wedding – now I’d be happy if I never saw snow again in my life. I wondered if it would be worth emigrating to Australia. There was no snow there, as far as I knew. Perhaps Penny could help. She seemed to be the expert on everything.
Mum took my hand.
‘Breathe Esme,’ she said. I realised I was gulping air in my efforts not to cry and gulped some wine instead.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Mum said in a calm voice. ‘We will sort all this out. We’ve got the dresses and the food all arranged and there will be a way to make sure your dad gets here, I promise.’
‘I promise too,’ said Suky.
‘And me,’ Harry added.
Louise grinned.
‘I can’t guarantee I’ll be much help,’ she said. ‘But I’ll do everything I can to make this wedding happen.’
I looked round at them and felt much happier. We may have been snowed in, with my wedding dress on the wrong side of an avalanche and my future husband’s ex-fiancée on the inside, but this could work. We McLeods were nothing if not resourceful.
Still gripping Mum’s hand, I smiled.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Bring it on. Let’s get this show on the road.’