Chapter Five
That night, Mark’s sleep was interrupted. Something niggled at the edge of his consciousness, as faint as static, but wouldn’t let him rest peacefully. As his eyes opened again to see the red digits of his alarm clock reading 3am, he groaned. There should only be one 3 o’clock in the day!
The last time he’d felt like this was when he’d drank too many Red Bulls at a party. Mark pulled the duvet over his head and curled up. He thought about what could possibly have happened today to affect his sleep. Or technically, yesterday.
The only thing that stood out from his regular routine was the lesson in witchcraft with Nanna. Had he done it wrong? Was the connection faulty? Or did it pick up on mental distress as well as physical danger? Was Harry experiencing nightmares – or was he struggling to sleep, too?
Mark sighed, he’d have to ask his Nanna when everyone else woke up. He’d check in with Harry, too. In fact, he could probably do that now, if his best friend was awake. He blindly felt for his mobile and tapped out a quick message to Harry. There was no immediate reply, and Mark drifted to sleep with his phone in hand.
*****
When Mark next awoke, there was a soft glow behind the curtains. Even though the sun had yet to rise, the snow gave off a brightness of its own.
Making his way downstairs, he found his Dad frying bacon while his Mum set the coffee to brew.
“I got a text from school, it’s cancelled today.” His Mum said, smiling. “Lucky you!”
Mark helped himself to some orange juice and looked out of the window, there was a couple feet of snow in most places, with a higher drift up against the shed. The snow ploughs would get to work, and tomorrow everything would be back to normal; but today was freedom.
Well, almost freedom. You couldn’t really get anywhere, and nowhere was open, which meant being stuck at home.
“You look tired, are you alright?” His Dad asked, sliding some bacon onto his plate.
“Hmm? Oh, I didn’t sleep well.”
“You’re not coming down with something?” His Mum looked concerned. “I can get some of Nanna’s special tea.”
Mark shook his head. “No, I’m fine.”
His phone buzzed and he picked it up to see a text from Harry expressing his own glee at no school. Before Mark could reply, there was a second text, asking why he'd texted at stupid o’clock.
Mark looked up from his half-eaten breakfast, to his parents. “Sorry, I just need to ring Harry.” Before they could argue, he jumped up from the table.
“Yeah?” Harry eventually answered his phone.
“Hey, you OK?” Mark asked casually, while he worked out what to say.
“Hmm, good. Gone back to bed.”
“Look, random question, but did you sleep alright last night?”
“Like a log,” Harry answered, “why?”
“It’s a long story. You know I told you about Nanna training me in witchcraft? Well, she taught me a spell last night that’s supposed to tell me when my friends are in trouble. There was something happening last night, and I was worried… about you.” Mark finished awkwardly.
“Oh. I don’t know what to tell you, Mark. Everything’s fine.” Harry replied. “Maybe you did it wrong?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Mark echoed, not convinced. “OK, go back to sleep, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Mark hung up and headed back into the kitchen.
“Everything alright with Harry?” His Mum asked.
“Yes.” Mark replied shortly, picking up his fork and poking at the cold bacon on his plate.
*****
Mark told his parents he had a lot of GSCE revision to do, but spent most of the morning idly surfing the internet. He’d managed to Google some Christmas ideas; and read the reviews for the films coming out at Tealford cinema.
He looked out of his window to see his Mum shovelling snow from the paths; while his Dad cleared the driveway with a small tractor borrowed from Mr Brown, the farmer next door. Mark helped Mr Brown at weekends and in the school holidays. He supposed if he got very bored this afternoon, he could drive the borrowed tractor back and see if Mr Brown needed any help today.
Seeing his parents hard at work, Mark headed downstairs to the kitchen, with an idea of making dinner for them. When he got there, he found Nanna already stoking the fire for the cooker.
“Hi Mark, how are you enjoying your day off?”
Mark shrugged and headed to the fridge. “It’s fine, a bit boring. I just came down to fix some dinner.”
“Oh, what are we having?”
Mark looked inside the almost-bare fridge and sighed. “I can probably knock together omelettes. Maybe some oven chips.”
“Sounds delicious.” Nanna replied, putting her feet up. “You look tired.”
Mark frowned, he’d been honest with his parents, but not entirely so. At least he could be completely open with Nanna. “I think there’s something wrong with the spell we did yesterday. It kept me up all night, niggling away. But I checked with Harry this morning, and he was fine.”
Nanna sat there, running over the possible reasons. “Maybe you lost your concentration. It’s fine, you can’t expect to get it perfect on your first try.”
“No, I was totally focussed on Harry. The whole time, I was… I was…” Mark broke off. His attention had expanded from just Harry, to thinking about school. For a moment Damian had crept to the edge of his thoughts. “I might have momentarily thought about the new guy.”
Nanna chuckled. “It’s good to see you behaving like a normal teenager, distracted by a pretty face?”
“Don’t you start.” Mark warned. “I’ve seen you flirting with the farrier at every opportunity, it’s disturbing.”
“I may be old, but I’m still allowed to enjoy my life.” Nanna replied proudly. “Besides, I challenge anyone not to get distracted by the farrier. That man has the body of-“
“I’m not hearing this!” Mark shouted, jumping up and making more noise than necessary in the pan cupboard.
Nanna laughed to herself, and picked up one of her daughter-in-law’s magazines.
“So what do I do in the meantime? About this faulty spell?” Mark asked as he tipped frozen chips into an oven tray.
“Huh?” Nanna looked up from reading celebrity gossip. “Oh, I wouldn’t bother doing anything. It will wear off in a few hours, so it shouldn’t bother you much longer.”
Mark frowned, that was not the answer he was looking for. He’d been hoping for a quick break from the spell.
*****
As the afternoon wore on, Mark sat watching the sports highlights with his Dad, when his heart leapt. Mark froze, feeling an intense worry grip his chest.
“Mark?” His Dad glanced over, confused by the worried look on his son’s face. “Relax, Leeds could still get some points against Derby next week.”
“I’m just going to see Nanna.” Mark muttered, jumping up from the sofa and leaving, before his Dad had a chance to quiz him.
Mark forewent the coat and jogged from their front door to Nanna’s. He let himself in and followed the sound of Radio 2 until he found Nanna. She was sitting in the small living room, her head in her newest trashy novel. She looked up at the unexpected entrance of her grandson.
“Is everything alright, Mark?”
Mark paced across the small room, trying to physically distract himself from the dull ache in his chest. “I wanted to ask about the peril spell. You mentioned that I’d be alerted – how?”
“Well, I… I imagine that it can vary between people.” Nanna replied, her warm brown eyes following him. “When your grandad was hurt, I felt as though everything had stopped. There was an overwhelming sense of something wrong, that didn’t fade until I acted on it.”
“Like a persistent ache in your chest, a weight on your heart?”
“Yes… why?”
Mark stopped pacing and faced Nanna. “I think the spell has worked, I think someone is in trouble.”
“Mark, you can’t be sure. We don’t know on what level the faulty spell worked – this someone might have just stubbed their toe!”
“But-“
“I mean, do you even know who this alert is from? Have you tried calling Harry and this new kid?”
Mark felt his anxiety rise, he began to pace again to try and settle it. He needed to move, to do something. “No, I… I spoke to Harry this morning, I can call him again. I don’t have Damian’s number – I don’t even know his aunt’s name.”
Nanna took one look at how upset Mark was, and put her book down. “Right, well you’re not going out in that heavy snow. We’ll talk to your parents, see if they know how to contact the new guy.”
Nanna marched out of her house and around to her son and daughter-in-law’s front door. Mark hurried to keep up with her.
As they re-entered his parent’s house, Mark paused. He didn’t want to go in, it was the wrong direction; he needed to move.
“You did what?” His father’s raised voice sounded above the TV.