I don’t know which of us looked more shocked. All three of us were pretty stunned. Peter was pinching himself as if to check he wasn’t dreaming, and I was gawping at him with my mouth open. Only Duncan looked confused rather than surprised.
“Um, this is Peter,” I told Duncan, whilst trying to come up with a good excuse as to why there was a boy in my bedroom wearing only his pyjamas. Actually – forget a good excuse, any excuse at all would have done. I came up with … nothing!
Peter recovered quicker than I did. “Hi … Duncan, isn’t it?” He gave Duncan a smile. “I know this looks really odd, but I had a massive row with my father last night; he got kind of aggressive and then he kicked me out of the house. Emily was nice enough to offer me her floor for the night. We’re old friends and I just didn’t know where else to go. I’ve been lying low because I don’t want my dad to know where I am until he calms down, you know?”
Duncan nodded sympathetically. “Oh, right. Bummer.”
I was taken aback by how easily he accepted the decidedly ropey story. But it did explain everything, even Peter’s clothes. I supposed that Peter must have had a lot of time on his hands to think up his tall tales.
Peter kept his focus on Duncan. “Um, now that you know I’m here, I don’t suppose I could borrow some clothes off you, could I? We’re about the same size.”
I never thought Duncan would do something as selfless as lend his clothes – I mean, he went mental once when I borrowed his coat just to bolt to the car and back in the rain to fetch my school bag. But he just nodded again and got up, slightly unsteadily, and left the room.
“I think he’s got concussion,” I muttered, looking at the door Duncan had just exited through. “He must have, to accept that story!”
Peter shook his head. “I knew he’d understand; after all, his own dad is the same.”
“Huh?” I was confused. I knew Clare and Duncan didn’t see his dad, but I’d never heard he was aggressive or anything.
Peter gave me a look. “I hear things hanging around this house. Duncan’s had it pretty rough from his dad; maybe you should cut him some slack?”
I blinked a few times, realising that I had never asked or cared before. Maybe I should have.
“Whatever,” I mumbled; “can we deal with the fact you appear to have come back from the dead?”
Peter’s face lit up. “Yeah! You are one righteous witch, Emily Rand! Bringing back the dead. That’s got to be major league magic.”
“I don’t know,” I said, “I didn’t mean to do it!”
We both jumped as Bob tapped his beak on the window. “Oh, thank heavens,” I said, letting him in. “What did aunt Iris say?”
Bob gawked at Peter. “Holy hemlock,” he chirped. He looked at me. “She’s coming now, in her car. But you’ve got big problems, Mistress. I don’t know what you’ve done, but there are a load of, uh, dead bodies, heading this way.” He jerked his head at the window, and Peter and I rushed over to look out of it.
From the window I could see right down the hill to the common. It was really dark outside, but there was definitely something moving slowly over the common in this direction.
I felt sick. “What are they?” I whispered.
Bob looked worried. “For want of a better word, I would say ‘Zombies’. They all bust out of their graves a few minutes ago. I assume you didn’t call them on purpose?”
“No.” I clutched my head, trying not to wet myself from fear. I mean, I’ve played “Resident Evil” on my PlayStation, and zombies are no laughing matter.
“Are you sure they’re coming here?” Peter asked.
Bob nodded. “The spell came from here. I felt it. In fact, I saw it. Big yellow light? Pretty hard to miss. It went over the cemetery and then all these bodies started coming up. Only men, though, which is weird.”
“The spell to revive.” Peter looked at me. “You said ‘this man’ in the spell. It worked on me as well as Duncan; do you think it worked on all of them? There must be hundreds of dead men buried in this town.”
“Just this town?” Bob said, really not helping my nausea. “How do we know how far the spell went?”
“What do we do?” I whispered. I slumped down to the floor, still unable to face looking at the zombies again.
“Another spell?” suggested Peter.
I wailed, “But I don’t know what I’m doing! This is a nightmare!”
With his usual sense of crap timing, Duncan came back with some clothes for Peter. Bob dived under my bed to hide, and Peter and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing: we had to get Duncan out of the way.
Duncan held out some clothes for Peter and said, “These should fit. Are you coming to the party tonight? Because if you are then I might have a spare costume if you wanted.”
Despite the zombies on their way here, I took a second to wonder if Duncan had always been so friendly but I’d just never given him a chance.
Peter nodded and said, “That would be fantastic, can I come and look?” He practically pushed Duncan out of the door. On his way out he said under his breath, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you aunt will know what to do.”
Of course! Iris was coming, I ran back to the window. The zombies were at the bottom of the hill; they moved very slowly, so I figured I had a few minutes. Where was Iris? The whole road seemed deserted despite the fact it was now only about half past seven.
Then I saw her headlights. The zombies reached the road about the same time she did. Her car stopped for a second and then sped up exponentially and screeched up the hill.
“Keep an eye on them,” I called to Bob as I ran downstairs to let her in.
“There’s something very odd going on.” She sounded breathless. “Maybe it’s just kids, but I swear I just saw grown men dressed as…”
“Dead people?” I asked, giving her a shaky smile.
“Oh my stars!” She slapped her forehead. “I knew it felt wrong. What have you done?”
I dragged her up to my room, shut the door and quickly explained.
“Wait a minute.” She held up a hand. “Let’s get this clear. You say energy came out of your hands?”
“Yes, and then out of my whole body when I did the Revive spell.” I spoke fast, anxious about how much time we had before flesh-eating zombies tried to kill us. “Iris, can you do a spell, quickly?”
“No,” she said calmly. “I don’t have the power.” Then she looked almost excited as she said, “But you do. I just knew you’d be special. Emily, you’re a Natural Witch!”
I looked confused, obviously.
“OK, never mind right now.” She stroked the crystal around her neck thoughtfully. “But it’s a rare type of witch. You’ll need some specialist training.”
“Iris!” I almost shrieked at her. “I don’t care. We’re about to be attacked by the walking dead! What should we do?”
“Oh,” She looked surprised. “They won’t attack. You called them. They’ll await your command.”
“Are you serious?” I was giddy with relief.
She nodded and opened the window. “Tell them to wait in the garden, out of sight; we don’t want them traipsing mud in the house.”
I leaned out fearfully. An awful stench hit my nose. The first of the zombies was just entering the garden, hundreds more behind him.
“Uh, listen up, zombies.” I called out nervously. “Could you all wait in the garden, or the neighbours’ gardens? But stay out of sight, get off the road please.”
I was thrilled and amazed as they blundered about trying to do exactly as I had instructed.
“What I don’t understand,” Iris frowned, “is how you managed to revive them too. Didn’t you cast a circle before you did the spell? It should have been contained within it.”
“Yes, I did, but…” my voice trailed off as I looked at the candles on the floor and remembered leaping across the room just after I knocked Duncan out. “I broke the circle,” I finished lamely. “And I didn’t recast it before I did the Revive spell.” I hung my head.
“Why didn’t Bob remind you?” Iris shot Bob an irritated glance.
“She didn’t call me.” Bob hunched his little shoulders and gave us both a cross look.
“Emily,” Iris scolded me, “You must never do magic without your Familiar. He will act as your second pair of eyes, he will keep you grounded, and once you have bonded, his presence should add greatly to your magic.”
“Well, I didn’t know that. Sorry, Bob.” I reached out and stroked his head with one finger.
“So without the circle, how far has the magic gone? Have I revived all the dead men everywhere? Or just all the dead in England, or what?” The thought sent shivers down my spine.
“Oh no, it’s highly unlikely you’ve even covered the whole town. Definitely not beyond.” She seemed confident and I sighed with relief.
“Well, that’s something anyway.” I looked out the window again. Zombies were still arriving, but there were apparently no more on their way.
Peter came back into the room; he was wearing a onesie with a skeleton motif on it. “It seemed appropriate.” He laughed as I raised an eyebrow.
Iris coughed, trying to catch my attention subtly.
“It’s OK,” I told her, “Peter knows everything, he’s my ghost.”
“She revived me too.” Peter explained as Iris registered disbelief.
“Oh dear,” Iris sighed. “We have an awful lot to do tonight. Your spell only worked on Peter and the, uh, zombies, because it’s Halloween. The veil between the living and the dead is very thin tonight, but come midnight the veil will drop down again and they will all return to the way they were.”
I thought about that for a second. “But isn’t that good? The zombies will go back to being just dead bodies?”
“Yes, but in your garden! We have to get them back in their graves. And what about Peter? Tonight is the best night of the year to get him to cross over; he could be stuck here for another year whilst you learn what to do.”
“Aw, really?” Peter said. “Do I have to go tonight? I was hoping to take the old body out for a spin. Get out of this damn house, maybe smooch a few ladies.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.
“But then you would become a ghost again at midnight.” Iris reiterated. “Do you want to stay here another year, until the veil is this thin again, to pass over?”
Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. No offence, Emily, but if I have to listen to your music for another year I’ll go crazy.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my music,” I huffed. Though I suppose I do have an unfortunate habit of singing along to musicals, which no one was ever supposed to hear!
Iris clapped her hands to get our attention. “We can try a reversal spell. I can write a spell, but Emily will need to provide the power.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“What did you do before?” she said.
“I don’t know! It just sort of happened.”
Iris sighed, “Oh dear. This is the problem with Natural Witches. Your powers are attached to your emotions. You can’t just invoke them with words, you have to do it with feelings.”
“Well, that’s easy then,” I waved my hands at the window. “I definitely feel that I want the zombies to go away.” I aimed my palms at the window. Nothing happened. I shook my hands like you might shake a faulty toy; still nothing. I blew a long breath of irritation out of my cheeks.
“It’s not working.” I stamped my foot in frustration and my bedroom light flickered again.
“You aren’t focussed enough,” Iris said, looking up at the light with concern. “I’ll write the spell, it might help.”
She pulled a pad off my shelf and a pen from beside it and began to write. “There,” she said, handing it to me.
I read aloud from the paper:
“Undo what I have done,
Return the dead from where they come
In their graves undisturbed peacefully
This is my will, so mote it be.”
“Try saying it three times,” Iris suggested when still nothing happened; there was no bright light, and the zombies continued to moan quietly outside.
I did; we still had nothing.
“Right, that settles it,” Iris said, “I’m taking you to my Coven meeting, right now. When a Coven adds their magic together it can get pretty powerful. You can use our magic to enhance your own.”
“Yeah, OK.” I should have known I would end up going. Too bad about the party, I thought, feeling defeated.
“I think you had better bind Peter to you before we go, just in case.” Iris nodded to Peter, who was flicking through one of my magazines.
“How do I do that?” I asked.
“I’m afraid the quickest and simplest method would be a blood binding. As Peter is currently corporeal it should be easy.” Iris handed me a needle. “Both of you prick your fingers please.”
We did. “So do we press them together?” I held my bleeding finger out towards Peter’s.
“No, I’m afraid you have to ingest it. Suck the blood from his finger and vice versa.”
“That’s just revolting!” My stomach turned.
Peter was less bothered. He grabbed my finger and put it in his mouth, holding his own out to me. I gingerly sucked it.
Weirdly, the process felt quite erotic. My eyes caught and stuck with Peter’s as we sucked at each other’s fingers. I’d never noticed his eyes much before. They were a gorgeous blue-green. I felt myself suddenly incredibly drawn to him. Then there was a bang of light and we both staggered back, losing any physical contact.
Iris nodded in satisfaction. “Well done, Emily. A perfect binding.”