Anna Dale - Spellbound

Whispering to Witches
Dawn Undercover

Anna Dale

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

This electronic edition published in October 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright Anna Dale 2008
The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9 781 4088 1868 8

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To Mole Coleman, Jo Galpin and Kerry Kelsey

It goes without saying that brothers and sisters often share things with each other, like knock knees, turned-up noses, freckles, the measles, and if they are kind and generous toys and bags of sweets; but apart from sharing the same father and mother, Athene and Zachary Enright, aged twelve and six respectively, didnt share anything at all.

To start with, they looked as completely unalike as a panda and a porcupine. Athene had a sheet of dark brown hair that she wore tucked neatly behind her ears or braided into the tidiest plait that you have ever seen, whereas her younger brother, Zach, looked as if he had daubed his head with glue and stuck it in a hayrick. Blonder than custard, his hair was always in a state no matter how often his mother tried to tame it with a comb. Athene was tall and thin and Zach was small and stocky. Bookish and something of a know-it-all, Athene excelled at school in almost every subject whilst Zach was inattentive and more of a sporty, adventurous type.

Zachs nature was as sunny as a day in June, which was when he had been delivered into the world. Athene, on the other hand, had been born on a December night, slap-bang in the middle of a howling gale and her stormy moods and strong will reflected it.

No two siblings could have been so dissimilar as Athene and Zach. They were as distinct from each other as chalk is from cheese. Even their names were at opposite ends of the alphabet.

Of course, there are some people who have nothing at all in common and yet can get along extremely well. Regrettably, this was not the case with the two Enright children. Athene detested her brother from the minute she set eyes on him, wrapped in a white blanket, in his crib on the Katherine ward of Watford General Hospital. Baby Zachary George had done nothing in particular to invoke his sisters deep-seated hatred (at the age of three hours old he could barely do anything but blink). It was the very fact of his existence that she found so maddening and, from that moment, she promised herself that she would behave as unpleasantly towards him as she could.

By the age of twelve, Athenes spiteful treatment of her brother had become second nature to her. If Zach turned on the television, she switched channels immediately; if they played snakes and ladders together she cheated like crazy to make sure that she won; if they both wanted the last chocolate biscuit on the plate she would give him a pinch to make him change his mind.

On the morning of the third of March, which was a Saturday, the Enright family were to be found in the living room of their home in Chorleywood, leafing through a stack of glossy catalogues, discussing where they would like to spend their summer holiday.

I want to go camping, said Zach.

Do you, dear? said Mrs Enright nervously. She did not like the thought of sleeping outdoors where there were creepy-crawlies and funny smells. She also had an irrational fear of zips.

I hate camping, Athene said with a frown.

What about a boating holiday? said Mr Enright keenly. A week on a canal in Worcestershire sounds nice.

Yeah, lets go on a boat! said Zach. A big one with a red sail! He bounced up and down excitedly on the sofa.

I hate boats, said Athene, scowling hard.

Eventually, they settled upon two weeks in a farmhouse in Somerset, which offered Bed and Breakfast. Athene was the one to suggest it. She found a picture of the farmhouse in a catalogue which told her to While Away the Summer in the West Country. Her attention was grabbed by the colour of the farmhouses front door. She wasnt especially fond of the colour itself but she was extremely proud of knowing what it was called.

Its viridian, she told everybody smugly. She always took great pleasure in using long, unusual words, never wanting to miss an opportunity to demonstrate how smart she was.

What a lovely farmhouse and its in Somerset! said Mrs Enright delightedly. She had been on holiday there when she was a girl and had spent many happy hours cycling through its countryside.

This house has got a croquet lawn and a tennis court! said Mr Enright who always packed his training shoes when he went away. He liked to keep himself in trim.

And a pond! exclaimed Zach.

They were planning to go there in the first two weeks in August, which was, reputedly, the hottest time of the year. With any luck, thought Athene slyly, by the time that weve arrived, the pond will have dried up.

She had no idea as she sat there, gloating because she had succeeded in getting her own way, that this years summer holiday would turn out to be the most thrilling and, by far, the most dangerous that she had ever had.

On the fourth of August, the Enright family got up bright and early and piled into their car. The journey from Chorleywood to Somerset was long and hot and not without moments of tension. Athene and Zach sat next to each other in the back seat for three-and-a-half torturous hours and when they drove past a sign for the village of Mistlebrook and pulled up in the driveway of Freshwater Farmhouse, Athene felt so relieved that she almost gave a hearty cheer. She had barely waited for the wheels to stop turning before she undid her seatbelt and scrambled eagerly out of the car.

The farmhouse was three times the size of their house back in Chorleywood. It had the lumpy, lopsided look of somewhere very old. Athene was pleased to see that its door was the same shade of bluish-green as it had been in the photograph. As she watched, the door opened and a dog tumbled out of it, followed by a woman who looked nothing like the type of farmers wife that Athene had read about in books. What was this woman doing in flip-flops, a pair of shorts and a halter-neck top? Where were her galoshes, her apron and her ruddy cheeks? What on earth was she thinking of?

Despite her unauthentic wardrobe, the woman proved to be rather nice. Her name was Mrs Virginia Stirrup.

But you can call me Ginnie, she told them.

Ginnie looked over sixty and was slimmer than a reed, yet she hoicked two suitcases out of the boot of the Enrights car with no trouble at all.

Trying not to trip over her portly black labrador whose name, rather aptly, was Podge, the Enrights followed Ginnie into the farmhouse. Passing through the living room was like perusing the stalls at a jumble sale. There were pictures, board games and jigsaws, and books in untidy, precarious piles. In the furthest corner of the room was a table with four chairs placed around it which was where the guests were served their home-cooked breakfasts. Beyond the table and chairs was a wide, carpeted staircase which they climbed to get to the guest bedrooms in the west wing.