Magic or Madness Read Free Page A

It had a bath, a huge bath that you could practically do laps in, and a separate shower. A skylight in the ceiling flooded the white tiles with sunshine. I had never seen anything like it. There were no windows, though. It was a dead end.
    I’d never lived in a house before. I’d never had my own room before, let alone one with a balcony and a bathroom. And here, in my evil grandmother’s house, I had all those things. I would have swapped it all in a nanosecond to be with Sarafina.
    There was fresh lavender on the dressing table and in the bathroom. The smell was very soothing. Too soothing. Sarafina had taught me lots of chemistry, including the properties of herbs and flowers. Lavender could confuse and induce forgetfulness. I shredded it, stem, flowers, leaves, flushed them down the toilet, then washed my hands.
    Neatly folded on the bed was a pair of blue-and-white cotton PJs with matching dressing gown and slippers. They were grown-up looking, no little-girl ribbons or flowers or bows. I liked them.
    I sniffed at the pyjamas and gown carefully. I couldn’t quite identify the scent. It was lovely and didn’t make my eyes water. Better to be safe than sorry, though. I threw them into the bathtub and turned on the hot water. Piping hot. Good. Heat would soon dissolve any oils or perfumes. It was summer; they’d dry quick enough.
    Next I pulled the sheets off the bed and shoved the mattress up against the wall. I was sweating by the time I was done. I didn’t find any ritual objects: no bones, teeth, amulets, or small figures.
    None of those things would really work, of course, but my grandmother believed they did and would have been disconcerted to find them gone. Sarafina had taught me how to keep the upper hand. Besides, things like that are creepy.
    I let the mattress fall back onto the bed and remade it.
    There were lots of books. More books than in some of the country libraries I’d seen. I grew tired just thinking about flicking through each one to check for dried herbs and flowers. It was so long since I’d had a proper night’s sleep.
    I sat down on the bed, staring at the bookcase. The titles I recognised were books I’d always wanted to read: The Magic Pudding, The Wizard of Oz, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Nargun and the Stars, The Hobbit, brightly coloured books of fairy tales, all of them about magic. Sarafina would have hated those books.
    I knew my mother was not like other mothers, and not just because she’d gone mad and tried to kill herself. But it was worth giving up a few stupid books: other mothers weren’t as interesting or fun as Sarafina. They didn’t teach you number secrets or go walkabout with you. I missed her.
    I lay back on the bed and looked up at the white ceiling. It was so hard to keep it in my head that I was really here. My brain kept running through everything Sarafina had ever told me about this place, about her mother.
    Esmeralda believed magic was real, truly thought she was a witch, and did terrible things in her cellar because of this belief. Growing up with Esmeralda had made Sarafina hate the very idea of magic. She hated fairy tales, bunyips, hobbits, the Harry Potter books (which I’d also been longing to read), all of it.
    Most of all she hated Esmeralda.
    Esmeralda had kept Sarafina locked in her bedroom for years. She wasn’t allowed out until she admitted magic was real. But instead of giving in, Sarafina had run away.
    In Esmeralda’s house you had to move counterclockwise. It kept the magical energy running in the right direction: widdershins.
    There was no electricity in the house because it interfered with magic. There was no cooling in summer, no heating in winter. No telephones, no television, no radio. No nothing.
    Esmeralda had sex with every man she met in order to steal their vital energies. Some of them died.
    She sacrificed rats, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, and goats. She ate human babies that she bought from their impoverished mothers.
    I felt sick